MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

There are four core weighted aims to reveal, analyze, evaluate, and calibrate at the beginning of defining your sales strategy. The first objective is to bring together the key managers, team members, and stakeholders in your client journey. Next is to map your sales process, uncover expectations, and assign key roles and responsibilities. Thirdly, we will tap into the humanity and psychology of sales. Fourth, we will establish the deliverables and individual commitments to take your organization to the next level in sales.

When bringing your team of change agents together, we will identify and define roles, responsibilities, timelines, and milestones. We will focus on the internal readiness and acceptance of the sales strategy program. This will include appraising the team member involvement motivations and related program workload. This will ensure full alignment within the organization to reach your goals.

Together, we will then map your existing sales journey. The client sales journey is the complete body of experiences that your clients go through when interacting with your organization. Bringing together team members from all over your business will ensure a rigorous and systematic approach.

Mapping your client journey requires methodically aligning the sales, relationship, and client stages. While charting the associated activities with each stage. We will be performing a deep dive to determine existing relationship assets, review market/industry reputation, evaluate networking effects, and assess resources, knowledge, skills, and experience.

Utilizing the proven assessment tools and exercises we have developed, we evaluate your current situation. We keep asking questions to gain a clear understanding of your critical business requirements. We will establish the foundation of your initial situation. By evaluating your current systems, we can look for patterns, identify blockers, understand purpose, question usefulness and validity, and lay the groundwork to formulate a new plan.

This hard work is the essential building block of good sales strategy, capturing the big picture of your client journey. When we know enough about the nature of the challenge ahead, we are able to define it.

Together, we identify the challenge to overcome. This is the diagnosis of what is holding your organization back from reaching the next level of sales performance. We break down the complexity of your situation by determining critical aspects of your sales framework. From this newfound perspective, we establish a domain of action.

Next we will explore the psychology of sales, so we will be able to effectively tap into humanity and power skills. Embracing a growth mindset is crucial to objectivity, transparency, blame-free introspection, and acceptance of alternate perspectives. Through exclusive exercises, we will help your team reject complacency, adopt candid expectations, and accept the mantle of continuous improvement.

Finally, we will establish the key deliverables for the program, stakeholders, and your organization. These are the mutual commitments we form to ensure your sales strategy program success. We will set the vision and outline the actions to thrive at each stage. Through this work, we will begin to diagnose the challenge to overcome and ultimately design your sales strategy.

Throughout the Client Journey workshop, we are laying the groundwork to build a coherent sales strategy to achieve your desired outcome. When we have successfully opened your paradigm, we are able to focus individual minds and energy in the right areas. This becomes our guiding principle to reinforce and support your sales program evolution.

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Objectives

1. Obtain a clear understanding of the core objective of Workshop 1.

2. Bring together the key managers, team members, and stakeholders who will be actively engaged in all workshops.

3. Identify and engage at least one key stakeholder in every department for participation in Workshop 1.

4. Establish a regular meeting time, place, and information hub for the key managers, team members, and stakeholders to perform workshop tasks and related exercises.

5. For your pre-existing client journey map, regardless of age, review and have it available for Workshop 1.

6. Commitment by key managers, team members, and stakeholders to embrace a growth mindset.

7. Map client journey within the sales, relationship, and client stages.

8. Identify touchpoints and activities in the client journey, aligning with the sales, relationship, and client stages.

9. Associate the key influences of relationships, reputation, network effects, and ESK (experience, skills, knowledge) for each stage of the client journey.

10. Establish the essential deliverables for the key managers, team members, and stakeholders to ensure your sales strategy program success.

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Strategies

1. Each key manager, team member, and stakeholder is to thoroughly study the content of Workshop 1.

2. Company to identify and engage a key manager to lead the internal team of key managers, team members, and stakeholders who will be actively engaged in all workshops. This individual will be referred to as the Program Lead Manager.

3. Program Lead manager to collaborate and coordinate with company department heads to identify and engage at least one of their team members as a key stakeholder for participation in Workshop 1.

4. Program Lead manager to coordinate and establish the regular meeting time, place, and information hub for the key managers, team members, and stakeholders for workshop tasks and related exercises.

5. Program Lead manager to collect any existing client journey map or client’s path-to-purchase chart, then distribute to the key managers, team members, and stakeholders for review prior to Workshop 1.

6. Program Lead Manager, key managers, team members, and stakeholders to research growth mindset. Recommend Carol Dweck’s books: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, and Mindset: Changing The Way You Think To Fulfil Your Potential.

7. The Program Lead manager and each key manager, team member, and stakeholder to list the historical sales, relationship, and client stages within their departments.

8. The Program Lead manager and all key managers, team members, and stakeholders to identify and list the historical I touchpoints and activities in the client’s path-to-purchase.

9. The Program Lead manager and each key manager, team member, and stakeholder to review and identify key influences on the client journey.

10. The Program Lead manager to communicate with the department heads
regarding the core deliverables of their participating members to ensure program success.

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Tasks

1. Read through the entire workshop content including: Profile, MOST, Introduction, Executive Summary, Curriculum, Distance Learning, Tutorial Support, How To Study, Preliminary Analysis, Course Manuals, Project Studies, and Benefits.

2. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to complete the program team blueprint. The team blueprint will identify the Program Lead Manager, along with all key managers, team members, and stakeholders who will be actively engaged in the program workshops.

3. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to identify and engage at least one team member from each department as a key stakeholder for participation in Workshop 1.

4. Set up the regular meeting time, place, and information hub for the key managers, team members, and stakeholders for workshop tasks and related exercises.

5. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, for the Program Lead manager to collect and distribute any existing client journey map or client’s path-to-purchase chart to the key managers, team members, and stakeholders for review prior to Workshop 1.

6. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, for the key managers, team members, and stakeholders to review any existing client journey map or client’s path-to-purchase chart prior to Workshop 1.

7. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to read one of Carol Dweck’s books: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, or Mindset: Changing The Way You Think To Fulfil Your Potential.

8. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to review and list the historical sales, relationship, and client stages within their departments.

9. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to identify and list the historical touchpoints and activities in the client’s path-to-purchase.

10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to review and identify key influences on the client journey.

11. Set up ongoing communication channels for the core deliverables of the participating members to ensure program success.

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Introduction

Program Planning

Having a successful, thriving business is ultimately about the client experience. This is the true area where businesses compete with each other to attract, secure, and nurture client s, foster expansion, and boost profits. The key to delivering an excellent client experience lies in your approach to Sales Strategy, the essence of which is to engage, cultivate, close, and convert client s into champions. With our strategic and methodical approach, together, we will make it happen.

Sales strategy begins by bringing together the key managers, team members, and stakeholders in your Client Journey. To create an accurate client journey map, we must include people from all over the business. Team members from different areas of the organization will be more familiar with unique aspects of the journey, how they work, and how clients experience them.

We need input from enough sources so we can detect patterns. These patterns will guide our understanding of where clients are enjoying the least amount of friction in the journey – and suffering through the most. Our goal is to understand each step from the client’s point of view, starting with the process before your company even enters their mind.

We will ask questions that help elicit responses providing a complete view of the client journey. We need to understand your internal process and employee perspective as they relate to the client journey. The only way to fully capture the true client experience is to document it from every angle. Having a 360-degree view will play a major role in identifying opportunities to improve the Client Journey experience.

The team you assemble for the Sales Strategy program should include the key managers, team members, and stakeholders in your sales process. From a departmental perspective, this will include sales, marketing, management, and operations. These are the core groups that will attend every training module and be the change agents within your business.

With their boots on the ground, all members of the sales team should participate in the training. This includes sales management, support roles, and customer service. If it is not feasible to include the entire sales team, you may instead select individuals who are representative of the group as a whole, running the gamut of product and service experience, tenure, and volume.

Your highest marketing role with the organization, or their chosen representative, should participate in all training modules. Depending upon your business model, you may want to include several marketing team members. And certainly, a wider segment of the marketing department should be engaged in the Client Journey.

The marketing team has constant indirect and behind-the-scenes involvement in the client journey. Steps like creating lead magnets, managing social channels, and implementing email outreach campaigns barely scratch the surface of the marketing touchpoints in the client journey. They will also be heavily engaged, as they are now, in supporting the sales team in your evolving sales strategy.

Your management/leadership team will want to be present during all modules to drive the actions and steps required to achieve your strategic objectives. The Sales Strategy program is built to grow your sales, and therefore your business. While it may not be viable for your full management/leadership team to attend, choose the individual who will be the driving force for the program.

Getting the client journey mapping right is crucial for your business outlook. While in the past, businesses competed on products, price, and delivery, today a core competitive edge is with the experience you give your client. Clients have a different relationship with the businesses they buy from. Due to the increasingly global nature of business, B2B clients no longer have to choose from a select few local or national businesses. They have the power to choose from a whole world of suppliers.

Your operations team and management must be included in the Sales Strategy training. To capture the entire Client Journey, this first training module should include operations team members from manufacturing and production, shipping and logistics, and support services. People from different areas of the business bring fresh insights to the client touchpoints, how they work, and what the client experiences at these junctures. An example could be your customer service team who may interact with clients daily, hear their frustrations, and see areas of friction.

Finally, client interaction representatives from the administrative, IT, HR, finance, security, and supply chain departments should participate in this first training module. Accurately mapping your Client Journey relies on input from every client touchpoint, from accounts payable to the security requirements for a client plant tour.

When bringing your team of change agents together, we will identify and define roles, responsibilities, timelines, and milestones. We will focus on the internal readiness and acceptance of the Sales Strategy program. This will include appraising the team member involvement, motivations, and related program workload. This will ensure full alignment within the organization to reach your goals.

The following roles will be defined at this stage of the training to carry us through the entirety of the program: Program Lead Manager, Key Managers, Team Members, and Stakeholders.

The company will identify and engage a key manager to lead the internal team of key managers, team members, and stakeholders who will be actively engaged in all workshops. This individual will be referred to as the Program Lead Manager.

The Key Managers represented will include, but not be limited to, the leadership, sales, and marketing branches of the organization. And the Team Members will comprise of the sales department, along with a pick of marketing staff. Depending upon your business model, you may choose additional departments to have individuals in the role of Team Members.

Key stakeholders to be involved in the Sales Strategy program should include areas who serve the client. This may include a representative from your customer service call center, accounts payable unit, IT division, and product manufacturing. These individuals will participate in many of the training sessions, but not all.

Once your team of change agents is assembled, we will clarify and define their functional roles and responsibilities in regards to the Sales Strategy program. This will include the time requirements, tasks, and expectations outside and between the training sessions. Our goal is to provide the direction and facilitate positive engagement for the program team to thrive.

Bringing your team of change agents together is an important step to help them work together effectively. By setting context for what the overall team is responsible for, we can effectively clarify individual responsibilities and find gaps that need to be filled. From there, we will then discuss specific tasks, review ideas, establish dates, and prioritize.

To meet their responsibilities, your team of change agents requires a growth mindset. A growth mindset is where individuals believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Your team needs to embrace a love of learning and pushing their boundaries. A growth mindset encourages curiosity to ask why, pursue alternate viewpoints, and a resilience to move through challenges.

In addition to all team members attending and actively engaging in every workshop, they will meet between training sessions to further develop concepts acquired, complete assigned exercises, and seek opportunities to grow. It is vital to be actively listening to their counterparts in different silos to gain a high level of understanding of the client experience across the business.

Timelines are extremely important throughout the Sales Strategy program. They help the team visualize and synchronize tasks, set deadlines, and define potential delays. Clearly communicating expectations and schedule requirements will foster effective team building. Furthermore, we want, need, and deserve the full engagement of every team member.

Milestones are powerful components in this program because they showcase key stages, highlight accomplishments, and map the forward movement in your Sales Strategy. A milestone is a marker in the Sales Strategy program that signifies a change or stage in development. Milestones act as signposts through the course of your program, helping ensure your team members stay on track.

With careful planning, we will gain improved collaboration between and among the team members and departments, while reducing the possibilities of misunderstandings and disputes, especially between silos. By communicating their responsibilities and accountability to the Sales Strategy program team, we produce stronger teamwork, leading to higher productivity and better results.

To truly develop a highly effective team, a key component in the process is team building. An important area to start with in the development of team building is communication, which was discussed above.

Effective communication is the most straightforward, surefire way of creating a strong team. To have trust in your coworkers, a great deal of the initial foundation is built on the ability to communicate. When another team member can clearly express their expectations or needs to another member, then effective work can be done, but, perhaps most importantly, those team members have an understanding of their expectations. All team members in this program must consider what their colleagues need to know to be successful. Oftentimes, conflict within a team is rooted in the fact that there has been miscommunication about an important task or requirement. By clearly communicating a rubric for the work, teams can ensure they are on the same page.

Once this initial cornerstone of team building has been placed, more precise support systems can be developed. A group not only needs to have good communication—the best groups also have a deep understanding of everyone’s areas of expertise. Teams work more effectively when they take into account that, even if a task is assigned to one person, another group member may still make meaningful contributions if the task relates to their expertise. Members should therefore be encouraged to seek feedback and input from relevant team members.

A final building block to discuss in a strong team is respect. This goes beyond the basic respect expected not just in the workplace, but in every area of life. Recognize and respect that other team members are people, and that everyone will make mistakes. Make sure to keep in mind others’ successes even against their failures. In most teams, there will be an ebb and flow of intense work, and it is important that everyone keeps respect at the forefront of their thoughts in a stressful work period.

And, if there ever is a team member who you feel is not completing their tasks, it is a disservice to ignore them. If such a problem is ignored, then the issue will never be resolved. For whomever it is appropriate to do so, honestly address any problem with the other team member. Take care to understand why they are struggling. Would this team member be better off in another area of the project? Or do they simply need a weekly check-in if they have questions about their work? Additionally, a team member perceived to not be pulling their own weight may not realize they have a slow work output. If they are made aware of the problem, then they have the opportunity to work to improve it.

Now that our team is assembled and has clarity, we will begin mapping where we are: what your Client Journey looks like from the client’s perspective. We perform a deep dive into your current processes, systems, interrelated activities, and sales journey. This allows us to fully understand your starting point, processes that are working well, and the processes that need the most attention for full improvement. Utilizing the proven assessment tools and exercises we have developed, we formulate and assess your current situation. We keep asking questions to gain a clear understanding of your critical business requirements.

Ultimately, we are creating the process to build a client journey map that will deliver clarity to your business. It will enable us to see where the focus may need to be shifted, highlight much needed improvements, and identify areas that require tweaks and refinements. It delivers transparency across the organization, fostering a unified purpose, and supporting enhanced collaboration between silos.

Throughout the planning stage, we are laying the groundwork to build a coherent sales strategy to achieve your desired outcome. When we have successfully opened your paradigm, we are able to focus individual minds and energy in the right areas. This becomes our guiding principle to reinforce and support your sales program evolution.

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Program Development

The definition of Client Journey is: the complete sum of experiences your clients go through when interacting with your company. Instead of looking at just a part of a sale or experience, the client journey documents the full experience of being a client.

Client journey maps are a visual representation of your client’s course with and through your business. They are a powerful tool and reference element when making business decisions. For your organization to thrive, all decisions must keep the client journey in the forefront to enhance and strengthen the client experience.

Client journey mapping encompasses visualizing the client’s journey and experiences as a means to create actionable goals. It is imperative to place yourself in the mind of the client. See and experience your business through their prism. Because, from inside your business, it can be difficult to understand the clients experience in the same way as they do from the outside. Throughout the Client journey mapping process we will be asking “why” to capture the clients viewpoint.

To effectively map your Client journey, we need to think like your clients. This includes understanding how they behave, what they want, how it will benefit them, and what it will enable them to do. This is an important part of mapping the client experience which delivers significant benefits for your business.

Mapping your client journey provides the means to make immediate refinements, eliminate redundant or unnecessary steps, tighten gaps, reduce costs, and implement improvements which delight clients. In addition, with the clarity your map provides, you have exceptional insights to planning the how, when, and where to market new products and services.

The process of mapping your client journey demands a clear methodology to identify touchpoints, pinpoint areas of friction, classify client “why”, look for gaps, reveal pain points, and areas of excellence. We will go through each of these facets to ensure they are incorporated into your strategic planning.

Touchpoints are where clients interact with your company, product, service, and team members. In other words, anywhere they come in contact with your organization – before, during, or after they purchase from you. Common touchpoints are planned by your company, initiated by your client, inherent within your product or service, and some are unexpected.

There are a myriad of possible areas of friction. Examples of friction include: places where expectations are not being met, unnecessary interactions, overly complex pathways, or lapses in timely communication. This is the tip of the proverbial iceberg and illustrates how vital these risks are uncovered during our Client journey mapping process.

While we will go in depth into the “Client Why” in module 3, classifying what your client is experiencing is crucial in the Client journey mapping process. Examining specific behaviors, motivations, emotions, and common patterns helps us humanize the client and make the Client journey mapping process more real.

There are areas of improvement in every organization. Our Client journey mapping reveals where gaps may exist in the client experience. For example, one department may prove to be understaffed and thus a cause of frustration for clients when they interact with this group. Similarly, problems in communication among internal team members or departments may also be revealed if agents are unable to obtain timely support from peers during service interactions. Our work mapping the Client journey is ideal for understanding the gaps that need to be addressed.

A pain point is a specific problem that prospective clients of your product or service are experiencing. However, they can occur internally within your business as well. Many people think of pain points as problems, plain and simple. Like any problem, client pain points are as diverse and varied as your prospective clients themselves. A key benefit of initiating the client journey mapping exercise, is providing an awareness of the pain points that exist for your clients, and how severe they may be.

During the process of Client journey mapping, we will acknowledge and seek to replicate areas of excellence. Asking how a process, approach, or solution is working in one space, and how the principals can be applied elsewhere. Working together as a team, we reveal these hidden gems.

Good sales strategy requires fitting various components together so they work as a coherent whole. This encompasses multiple departments, functions, and requirements. Developing a client journey map requires exploring, evaluating, and choosing the objectives that will facilitate reaching your sales goal.

Another key component to creating an accurate client journey map is creating buyer personas. A buyer persona is a profile representing a particular group of people, such as a group of clients in specific roles, industries, market segments, or a stakeholder group. They help us relate to the groups as individuals and provide the context needed when mapping their experiences with your organization.

Together we will create a primary buyer persona for the client journey mapping exercise. Optimally, this persona exemplifies your target client. We will define their role, industry, goals, and motivations. Tapping into the sales team members knowledge will help us avoid assumptions and stereotyping.

Creating a robust buying persona requires asking questions that clarify their connection to a specific problem, situation, product or service. What are their expectations of your product or service? What are they trying to accomplish? What is their purpose for using your product or service? What do they want, need, or lack? Are there specific pain points they are experiencing and trying to overcome? What questions do they need answered? And, what really matters to them.

To complete fleshing out your buyer persona we will want to gather additional facets. What does a typical day look like for them? What tasks do they need to accomplish? What channels of communication do they use or how do they communicate? How do they make decisions? Which people or situations influence their decision making process?

Our goal in creating a buying persona is to prevent you from getting stuck in an inside-out perspective of the client journey. This is the “client-will-purchase-from-us journey” because it is grounded in a biased view that the prospect will become a buyer of your products or services.

We need buyer personas to capture an accurate client journey map. They enable us to incorporate alternate viewpoints and a better understanding of the client experience. Which leads us to why it’s crucial to include people from all over your business when creating the client journey map. Team members from different areas of the organization will be more familiar with unique aspects of the journey, how they work, and how clients experience them.

We have developed the 5-Lane SAMI mapping framework that we find successful across all industries. Together we will use this as our overall strategy to mapping the client journey. We will establish our overall approach to the purchase journey across the five interlocking SAMI lanes: the sales, relationship, and client strands, activities, methodologies, and influences. This is where the client journey starts coming to life. Where we follow the client pathway across and through each phase of their journey.

The sales, relationship, and client strands are interconnected throughout the client journey. They support, influence, and play off one another throughout the client journey. They establish lanes with bridges that the client traverses during their journey.

The sales strand encompasses the four phases of lead, consultation, close, and implementation/delivery. The sales phase begins with the initial touchpoint or spark when the client connects to your company and becomes a lead. Consultation is the phase when the sales team is working with the client to understand how your product or service benefits them. The close phase includes the negotiation and deal closing process of the client journey. And the implementation/delivery phase includes ongoing business, how you manage the relationship, and where you can grow within the client’s sphere.

Each of the sales strand phases directly correlates the four relationship strand phases of worthy intent, cultivation, rapport, and nurture. In the first relationship phase, worthy intent is demonstrating sincere interest, discovery, and active listening. It’s about them. A person. In the cultivation phase of the client journey, you find common interests and learn about your clients’ passions, while building a bridge to a deeper connection. The rapport phase is when you have uncovered the internal and external forces in your client journey, and they are ready to move forward. And the nurture phase in the relationship strand is when your client feels secure, in control, and confident.

The sales and relationship strands align with the four client strand phases of awareness, consideration, decision, and champion. The client strand phase of awareness is about how the clients find out about your company. Consideration is the phase when the client is evaluating your product or service. The decision phase of the client journey is when the client is examining whether they will select you as a provider. And the champion phase is when the delightful client experience translates to expanded opportunities.

When the strands are aligned, they look like this:

Sales: Lead – Consultation – Close – Implementation and/or Delivery
Relationship: Worthy Intent – Cultivation – Rapport – Nurture
Client: Awareness – Consideration – Decision – Champion

The associated activities are then layered into the lanes of the sales, relationship, and client strands. The same activities present themselves in different ways within each lane of the client journey. Activities include the spark, target ICA (Ideal Client Avatar), qualifying lead, client “why”, communication, delivering value, outreach, presentations, follow-up, negotiation, close, transition, account team, client care, ongoing business, QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) and expansion.

The methodology we use in the SAMI client journey mapping framework was outlined previously. It captures the important nuances and details of touchpoints, areas of friction, client “why”, experience gaps, pain points, and areas of excellence. This work is critical to not only understanding the current state, but to help us refine and innovate your client journey.

The four influence factors of relationships, reputation, network effects, and ESK (experience, skills, knowledge) complete the SAMI mapping framework. Relationships are any existing connections between individuals and or organizations. For example, an existing client could provide a warm referral of your product/service to a peer. While reputation appears obvious, there are many components that impact the perceived standing of your organization. This could be a bad review on Google, to a whispered conversation at a conference. The same can be said for network effects. Impressions from PR, social chatter, and events are just a few of the network effects we want to document in the client journey. Finally, the collective ESK (experience, skills, knowledge) of your team is key to establishing competence, credibility, and trust.

This is the turning point where everything comes together. The development of the framework for the Client journey. Together we are building a bridge between departments, team members, functions, roles, and processes. It is the cornerstone for your evolving sales strategy.

This approach forces us to understand the experience from the time the buyer is figuring out whether their issue needs to be solved and is then considering different ways to solve it. Our objective is to uncover struggles that clients would have with any supplier, not just your organization.

Ultimately, we want to make the client’s experience smooth, easy, and enjoyable. Mapping the Client journey brings all the pieces together delivering powerful benefits and laying the foundation for your sales strategy.

The benefits of mapping your client’s journey include:

• Provide much needed context for developing your sales strategy.

• Identify gaps in service or communications to be reduced or eliminated.

• Guide departments across the organization on why and how they should break down their silos.

• Pave the way for your clients to better achieve their goals.

• Drive Better results, including a faster sales cycle, and more revenue from upselling and cross-selling efforts.

• Reduce costs through optimizing both sales and marketing practices, improvement in the cost of customer service, and a decrease in client churn reduce the costs of acquiring new clients.

• Enable better client experiences by connecting on an emotional level and provide optimum encounters in a proactive manner.

• Uncover many insights simply through the process of documenting the Client journey.

• Allows an understanding– and then redesign – of the client experience.

• The Client journey output is designed to be a catalyst for change.

• Greater employee satisfaction and confidence with a better understanding of the company’s goals and practices and receiving extra support to help them perform their roles with greater efficiency.

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Program Implementation

As we begin the implementation stage, we will utilize the SAMI Client journey map framework to gain a clear understanding of where you are at now. Understanding where your client journey is today will directly impact your company’s growth and business development. A delightful client experience creates positive client engagement.

Building out your client journey map delivers immediate and long-term benefits for your sales strategy and business growth.

Client journey maps help you create a more efficient and effective client experience moving forward. You will discover where you may be failing to deliver something your clients consider critical. This is key to meeting the high expectations clients have today. An efficient and effective client experience gives you a competitive edge on the global stage.

Building a client journey map helps you understand your clients better. In turn, fostering a more productive cohesion between your team silos or business units. Through the mapping process your team members gain a fresh perspective as to why each department needs to be closer to the client journey.

When we follow the SAMI client journey mapping framework we help you identify objectives, task, and priorities. By taking this approach to your client journey, you’re brought closer to the real things that make your business work. It provides you the opportunity to make changes and assess their benefits on the fly. This can then drive your decisions and goals for your sales strategy going forward.

Mapping the client journey gives a broad and clear view of how your client experiences your business. This is tremendously helpful for designing, planning, and executing the rollout of future products/services. A client journey map will also help you focus when it comes to how, when, and where to market your new products/services.

Every owner, executive, and board knows that client pain points add cost to the business. Mapping the client journey helps you identify client pain points. During the SAMI framework process we reveal how many pain points there are and determine how severe they are for your clients.

Another key benefit of mapping the client journey is how it cultivates your entire teams desire to innovate. Innovation happens when brainstorming, seeking alternate input, and fresh ideas happen. The client journey mapping exercise inspires and promotes this drive to offer the best possible client’s experience. And it can help you identify a great product/service you can offer them next.

When we ask, “how do we help our clients achieve their goals”, we begin the SAMI Client journey mapping process. Together, using the SAMI framework, we will map your existing sales journey. This is a strategic approach to better understanding client expectations and is crucial for optimizing the client experience.

To build an accurate client journey map we prompt input from across the business. This is why the client journey team includes representatives from departments all over the organization. People from different areas of the business will have insights and familiarity with specific arenas, how they work, and how clients experience them. It’s vital to document these elements in our mapping process to acquire the whole picture of the client experience.

At first glance, creating your buyer persona for the client journey map process may seem apparent. Especially if you take the shortcut of modeling the persona after a specific existing client. However, creating your buyer persona is an essential building block of capturing the big picture of your client journey.

We will focus our efforts on crafting one buying persona to utilize for the client mapping journey. Optimally, this persona exemplifies your target client. The first step is to define their role, industry, goals, and motivations. Tapping into the sales team members knowledge will help us avoid assumptions and stereotyping.

The second step to craft a robust buying persona is asking questions that clarify their connection to a specific problem, situation, product or service. Identify the distinct problem, situation, product or service for the buying persona. Then answer from the perspective of the buyer persona:

• What are their expectations of your product or service?

• What are they trying to accomplish?

• What is their purpose for using your product or service?

• What do they want, need, or lack?

• Are there specific pain points they are experiencing and trying to overcome?

• What questions do they need answered?

• What really matters to them?

• What does a typical day look like for them?

• What tasks do they need to accomplish?

• What channels of communication do they use or how do they communicate?

• How do they make decisions?

• Which people or situations influence their decision-making process?

This approach to crafting the buyer persona will prevent us from getting stuck in an inside-out perspective of the client journey (the “client-will-purchase-from-us” journey.) We want an unbiased view from the buyer persona in regards to your products or services. This approach to crafting the buyer persona enables us to produce an accurate client journey map.

We will utilize our 5-Lane SAMI client journey mapping framework we developed and found successful across all industries. Together we will use this as our overall strategy to mapping the client journey. We will establish our overall approach to the purchase journey across the five interlocking SAMI lanes: the sales, relationship, and client strands, activities, methodologies, and influences. This is where the client journey starts coming to life. Where we follow the client pathway across and through each phase of their journey.

The SAMI framework follows the interconnected sales, relationship, and client strands throughout the client journey. Each strand encompasses four phases where we map the client journey. The strands are:

Sales: Lead – Consultation – Close – Implementation and/or Delivery
Relationship: Worthy Intent – Cultivation – Rapport – Nurture
Client: Awareness – Consideration – Decision – Champion

Our next activity is adding the layers of the associated activities into the lanes of the sales, relationship, and client strands. Activities include the spark, target ICA (Ideal Client Avatar), qualifying lead, client “why”, communication, delivering value, outreach, presentations, follow-up, negotiation, close, transition, account team, client care, ongoing business, QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) and expansion.

While each business model is unique, a common scenario for the first lane of sales – lead, relationship – worthy intent, and client – awareness would include the following activities:

• Spark – How did the client find out about you?
• Target ICA (Ideal Client Avatar) – How did you target the lead?
• Client “why” – Why was the prospective client attracted to your product/service?
• Communication – How did you communicate the client “why”?
• Deliver value – What did you provide that delivered value to the client?
• Outreach – What methods did you utilize to connect with the prospect?
• Qualify lead – How and when do you qualify the lead?

We will map the activities for the buyer persona in each subsequent phase lane. Often the same activities present themselves in different ways within each lane of the client journey. The key is identifying how, why, and where the activity pivots to perform a new purpose.

The methodology we use in the SAMI client journey mapping framework is to identify touchpoints, pinpoint areas of friction, classify client “why”, look for gaps, reveal pain points, and seek areas of excellence. This work is critical to not only understanding the current state, but to help us refine and innovate your client journey.

Client touchpoints are anywhere that the client interacts with your company. This could be through their sales representative, a physical location, your website, your customer service line, social channels, or events. We will identify all of your touchpoints of how clients experience your business.

Together we will pinpoint areas of friction in your client journey. These can be something the client sees or experiences, or behind the scenes with your internal processes. These are especially important as they are associated with areas where the client feels negative emotions.

Your clients’ motivations and emotions should be at the forefront of your mind when classifying their “why”, in the SAMI framework. Examining specific behaviors, motivations, emotions, and common patterns helps us humanize the client and better understand their perspective during the client journey mapping process.

Opening or gaps in the client experience occur when there is a difference between client expectations and client perceptions. Gaps can also be found internally between departments or processes which negatively impact the client journey. They are an opportunity within the client journey mapping process to immediately address. Especially as some gaps carry more weight because clients experience them at key moments in their journey which can make or break their experience.

Working hard to reveal where the client hits a pain point within the client journey is a critical part of the mapping process. Pain points have the immediate results of creating a negative experience. To set your organization apart within a client-focused market, we need to maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions. Clients remember when your business causes them a headache, and they will choose a different option in the future.

The client journey map is an opportunity to seek and celebrate areas of excellence. What processes work really well? Where does your organization consistently exceed client expectations? What actions do the clients value and appreciate? And how can these things be used in other areas of your business?

Our final step within the SAMI client journey map framework is to perform a deep dive to determine existing relationship assets, review market/industry reputation, evaluate networking effects, and assess resources, knowledge, skills, and experience. These are the influences that directly impact your client journey.

A key influence within our client journey mapping process are relationships. These are any existing connections between individuals and or organizations. For example, an existing client could provide a warm referral of your product/service to a peer. Or your production manager is co-coaching the softball team with a senior executive at a firm you would like to be doing business with.

The influence of your reputation is critical since it not only attracts clients, but it also keeps them away from you. There are many components that impact the perceived standing of your organization. We will analyze who, where, and how your reputation influences your client journey.

Documenting network effects within the client journey is focused on achieving closer relationships with our clients and prospects. As an example, these influences include impressions from PR, social chatter, and events. Note: for clarity, we do not use the term network effects as a value of a product, service, or platform depends on the number of buyers, sellers, or users who leverage it.

The ESK (experience, skills, knowledge) influence in your client journey map is a core area of strength. The collective ESK of your team is key to establishing competence, credibility, and trust. And it plays an important role in influencing your client experience along their journey with your organization.

We will establish the foundation of your initial situation through the client journey mapping process. By evaluating your current systems, we can look for patterns, identify blockers, understand purpose, question usefulness and validity, and lay the groundwork to formulate a new plan. We will analyze moving parts, anticipate actions and reactions, competencies needed, resources available, existing constraints, and coordinate action across departments.

We break down the complexity of your situation by determining critical aspects of your client journey. From this newfound perspective, we establish a domain of action. There will be subtle turns, refinements, and solution iterations as we proceed through the essential work required.

Just as it’s critical to understand the full journey, it’s important to pinpoint critical moments that often result in make-or-break decisions for your clients. Together, we identify the moments that lead to your clients walking away, and the ones that persuade them to move forward. At each stage of the client journey, we build the bridges to and between paths, activities, influences, and team dynamics.

Our objective is to make the map actionable: You want to empower people across your organization to improve the Client journey. We are developing a journey map to use the insights gained to change processes and outcomes for the better.

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Program Management

In the introduction for planning, we highlighted how sales strategy begins by bringing together the key managers, team members, and stakeholders in your client journey. Reviewing why we must include people from all over the business to craft an accurate client journey map. Additionally, we addressed how the input from different areas of the organization can help detect patterns to guide our understanding of the client journey.

The development introduction established the definition of the client journey, and how client journey maps are a visual representation of your client’s course with and through your business. Reviewing the importance of placing yourself in the mind of the client, allows you to see and experience your business through their prism.

The implementation introduction revealed the SAMI Client journey map framework. We went in-depth on how it enables you to gain a clear understanding of where you are at now and how understanding where your client journey is today will directly impact your company’s growth and business development.

To fully realize the learning, benefits, and opportunities revealed in the SAMI client journey mapping framework, your team must embrace a growth mindset. This means letting go of the status quo, rejecting complacency, exploring alternate perspectives, and recognizing previously hidden opportunities. Our activities and exercises are specifically designed to expand critical thinking.

But what is a growth mindset, exactly?

Ultimately, having a growth mindset means believing that positive growth and change is achievable, and that you are not trapped within your own limits. The fact of psychology is, belief itself can be a limiting behavior. Of course, this does not mean that some can defy basic laws of physics through belief—achieving self-powered human flight through pure belief, for example—but it is true that belief in your abilities strongly impacts your outcomes.

This relates to many psychological principles revolving around individual agency, locus of control, and concepts of personal fundamental limits. Locus of control, for example, relates to how people perceive events in their lives. When people have what is called an external locus of control, they believe that life events happen to them, and also believe, consequently, that they ultimately have little control over their lives. People who strongly subscribe to an external locus of control may be more likely to refuse to take beneficial action in their own lives.

An external locus of control is not inherent to an individual, and genetics do not determine whether or not any person has this perspective. Oftentimes, difficult events in life have pushed people to be more likely to accept that they are out of control, and because of a few bad events they may give up, subconsciously, the idea of maintaining any control to positively affect their lives.

We focus on promoting an internal locus of control, which represents the belief that individuals can affect real change for themselves.

Of course, we all probably like the idea of having an internal locus of control sort of attitude, and likewise for having a growth mindset, but sometimes challenges in life can make these benefits seem like they are only applicable to other people. It is critical to recognize that, in reality, the belief that at least some of the time you can take action to positively impact your life will actually trigger you to take the action required.

This is part of the key goals of a growth mindset. Nobody is destined to fail, and we can all take steps to better learn in areas we want to become more knowledgeable in. The first step to empowering yourself to have a powerful, enabling growth mindset is simply to recognize that it is possible. Then, the hard work begins.

Welcoming a growth mindset is crucial to objectivity, transparency, blame-free introspection, and acceptance of alternate perspectives. Without the freedom attained through having a growth mindset, accurately mapping the client journey becomes difficult. We cannot see beyond our own barriers or break free from the paradigm we have built without the use of a growth mindset.

Through exclusive growth mindset exercises, we will help your team reject complacency, adopt candid expectations, and accept the mantle of continuous improvement. Thus, creating the pathway to crafting an accurate client journey map. This is vital work to nurture your team’s growth mindset. Most limiting beliefs are subconscious, so they may take some work to uncover. This is why we want your team to complete the exercises for this session.

Our exclusive growth mindset exercises give you the tools your team needs to shake their paradigm, reframe their mindset, and shift their self-imposed limiting beliefs.

The growth mindset exercises include:

• Accomplishments Worksheet
• Automatic Thoughts Log
• Constructive Criticism Worksheet
• Reframing Flaws Worksheet
• Strengths & Opportunities Worksheet
• Managing Emotions Worksheet
• Identifying What’s Holding You Back Worksheet
• Affirmations Worksheet
• Value Vault Workbook

Our goal is to help your team perform a blame free analysis and to ask themselves questions and tease out the deeper causes of their behavior. It is a fact-finding mission, to identify patterns, and observe where your team has felt blocked. Once your team has identified their limiting beliefs, there are six techniques to overcome them. These are understanding their purpose, questioning the limiting beliefs, laughing at them, formulating new beliefs, retraining your brain, and finding inspiration.

In the first technique, understanding their purpose, you can use time travel, as many of our self-limiting beliefs are formed early in life. With this technique you describe your upbringing. What were your parents or caregivers like? Their values? What did they teach you about the world? What about your wider environment, like school, extended family, local community, and/or religious institutions? What did they teach you about yourself? As you grew older, which of these early lessons did you react most strongly against? What did you learn about yourself that contradicted what you’d been taught? These are just some questions to get you started with time travel to gain an understanding of the purpose for the self-limiting beliefs. The idea is to get a clear picture of the environment you grew up in and how it shaped your belief formation.

The second technique in achieving a growth mindset is to question any limiting beliefs you have identified. This step of recognition allows you to objectively step back and question why your limiting belief exists and how it impacts you.

Consider how having this belief limits you, and imagine a scenario where you are incapable of feeling you are limited in this way. An example is, many people believe they are bad at math, and they may believe that this will always be the case. If a student goes into an exam with this belief, they are more likely to have poorly prepared for the test, because they already expect to fail no matter what action they take. Instead, if they recognized that they could in fact achieve better grades because they were not fundamentally limited in the subject, they may take action to study. Studies have shown that even having encouragement to do better will generally produce better outcomes—not that studying should be replaced solely with gold-star stickers.

Another helpful way to address your limiting belief is to imagine a conversation with a friend. Can you imagine your friend expressing to you that they thought this limiting belief about you? If you have good friends, they would probably never express this – they would only offer encouragement, and belief in your abilities. If your friends believe in you, why should you not believe in yourself? Trust in their judgement.

The next step is laughing at your self-limiting beliefs to shift into a growth mindset. Humor can be an effective unblocking tool. It’s hard for something to have power over you when you’re laughing at it. Make jokes out of your limiting beliefs. Take them to extremes and come up with absurd scenarios that make you laugh, or at least not take yourself and your beliefs so seriously.

The fourth technique to overcome self-limiting beliefs and adopt a growth mindset is formulating new beliefs. To break the power of your old beliefs, you also need to replace them with new ones. You need to believe in something to make sense of the world and to give yourself a stable foundation for navigating it. So for each of the limiting beliefs you’ve identified, turn it around and formulate a new belief that’s more in line with your values and that’ll support you in achieving your goals.

Retraining your brain is the fifth effective technique to help you embrace a growth mindset and quell self-limiting beliefs. Let us return to the concept of an internal locus of control. Recall that life events may be what lead people to have what we’re trying to change: an external locus of control. It is not easy to overcome events you have experienced that lead to any self-limiting beliefs, in part because life experience is very real. To retrain your brain, you will need to take conscious steps to implement growth mindset thoughts, and you will need to actively choose an internal locus of control. Whenever you find yourself following your limiting beliefs, take a second to recognize this pattern, and then instead pivot to a growth mindset.

The last technique in achieving a growth mindset is finding inspiration. Often, the best motivation to grow comes from new interests and passions. Next time you find an area that interests you, consider how you can take action to achieve success there. This can be in the workplace, but it can also be a hobby or life skill. An example is learning a new instrument. There is lots of evidence that at any age, people can develop new skills and become proficient, but instead what we often hear is that new activities, such as music, should be left to young people. This is a limiting mindset, and it is also discouraging people from pursuing passion and following inspiration. Anyone can become better at something if they are passionate and want to dedicate some time. Once you have found your source of inspiration, you can begin to really implement a growth mindset on a daily basis.

These growth mindset exercises for introspection deliver powerful and proven advantages to your team. They help us open our prism to account for logic and emotions during the client journey. People making business decisions and purchases experience emotions during the process. Feelings of anxiety or double are normal human experiences. By accounting for your clients’ logic and emotions in your client journey maps we are able to develop an accurate portrayal of their experience.

Together, we will be embarking on a deliberate cultural shift to create the changes needed to improve the client experience. The interrelated endeavors include refining organizational processes, systemic transformation, technology approaches, and team synergy.

Critical thinking is a key aspect of any well-developed plan. By interlacing the strengths of critical thinking into any project or strategy, a stronger outcome can be achieved. The reason for this is that critical thinking allows honest evaluation of any situation. Making controlled judgements about your goals, needs, and obstacles is the best way to recognize mistakes, as well as develop stable plans that will realistically get you where you need to go.

As we explore the psychology of the client journey, we will tap into human behavior. We can forget that clients are human beings just like us. Our clients experience life through their five senses. They unconsciously connect with emotion and memory through their innate human ability to perceive the world using sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste. The more the client experience reaches each of these five senses, the stronger the memory that is created and the more likely they are to recall the experience.

Therefore, we want to seek opportunities within the client journey where your company can tap into the emotions that are unconsciously engaged in the client. This requires some out-of-the-box thinking to make sense to the client and produce a positive experience.

Another common human behavior is hidden motivations. We need to identify these with the client journey map. Clients have deep-seated needs that need to be satisfied during their sales journey. It’s important to remember that clients are more interested in what your product or service can do to solve their problems and address their pain points than they are in your actual company.

Another human behavior is that we are hardwired to first trust recommendations from people we know. This even applies to clients who think of themselves as freethinkers. Crafting a client journey that delights the client will position your organization to transform clients into champions.

By combining critical thinking with human emotion, a more accurate, thorough client journey map can be crafted. Human emotion carries us through life and helps develop strong connections, but critical thinking is needed to effectively plan and develop long-term goals. By combining these aspects of the human experience, your team can strengthen all aspects of client interaction and achievement.

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Program Review

This process-driven workshop is designed to translate our findings into a visual representation of your client journey. By providing enough detail for people across your organization to take-action, you will strengthen your ability to address client needs and to benefit client outcomes. The client journey map we will have created together provides the clarity needed to allocate, focus, and coordinate your resources.

We will establish the key deliverables of the client experience for the team members, stakeholders, and your organization. These are the mutual commitments we form to ensure your sales strategy program success. We will set the vision and outline the actions to thrive at each stage. Through this work, we will begin to diagnose the challenge to overcome and ultimately design your sales strategy.

Throughout the first workshop for mapping the client journey, we are laying the groundwork to build a coherent sales strategy to achieve your desired outcome. When we have successfully developed your paradigm, we are then able to focus individual minds and energy in the right areas. This becomes our guiding principle to reinforce and support your sales program evolution.

Our deliverables at this juncture are the following steps. First, we break down the complexity of your situation by determining critical aspects of your client journey. From this newfound perspective, we establish a domain of action.

Next, we establish the deliverables and individual commitments to take your organization to the next level in sales. This involves focusing and coordinating efforts across departments to support the sales strategy initiative.

At this time, clear roles and responsibilities will be defined to establish a structure for the workshop team. The company program manager, participants, and invited stakeholders will be confirmed. We will also establish the guardrails for overall involvement and workload requirements. Finally, by leveraging a positive environment, a team that utilizes a strong growth mindset will have been developed and will be ready to create the client-based deliverables effectively.

This entire process paves a path to adapt your methods, systems, and teams to focus on the evolution you are seeking.

Additionally, we will develop a procedure to maintain close connections with your key managers, team members, and stakeholders. This will allow for more frequent and thorough evaluations of the team’s progress in the program, and it will ensure that the program meets the needs of the team.

Throughout our work together, we will be transparent and actively seek ongoing assessment. This will provide us with crucial feedback on the program deliverables, achievements, and any needed adjustments. We welcome your valuable input to adjust the program to become even more effective in the future, in addition to benefiting your team as the program progresses.

While the client map is meant to express the experience from the client’s point of view, we will be sure to flag areas that present an opportunity for your company to change the experience for the better. We make sure to determine the deliverables for the situations, circumstances, and obstacles recognized. Then they can be converted into action items assigned to the appropriate departments and people.

Once it’s ready, socialize the client’s journey map throughout your organization. Perhaps you present it to your executive team and a select set of clients before rolling it out to the whole company. You should meet with key stakeholders from all departments to determine how to activate the journey map findings through process changes.

Another important outcome is to make the journey map measurable by grounding outcomes in business metrics. As part of identifying opportunities to improve the client experience, goals should be made to outline the potential impact of each improvement. By associating these impacts with business KPIs and metrics, everyone can more easily determine which changes to prioritize.

Another reason to align client journey improvements to business metrics is to help prove the value of a client experience focus. If your company can, for example, increase contract renewals and client satisfaction ratings while reducing manual steps in the contract renewal process, it’s a win-win for clients and the business.

We deliberately select the actions needed to overcome the challenge. This involves focusing and coordinating efforts across departments to support the sales strategy initiative. Together, we build the road map of the resources, policies, systems, and maneuvers that need to be undertaken.

It’s good to have a high-level view of the whole client journey, but you should also have a more detailed map of the different stages of the client journey. For example, what happens before the client comes to your website? Does the journey begin with an email campaign? Or is the spark a cold call from the sales team? What is your cadence through the consideration phase of the client journey? These are all important questions that are easily overlooked but critical to how you attract and retain clients.

Creating a client journey map is a great way of bringing clarity to your business goals and determining areas that need targeted improvement to better connect with the client. Sometimes the focus must be shifted to one area to make some much-needed improvements. Sometimes, it will be found that there are several areas of improvement that require attention. By identifying these areas and determining the steps for improvement, your business will solidify its strengths in how it interacts across its client base.

When you’ve created your client journey map and decided on the areas that need focus, it’s important to set realistic goals. It is not feasible to expect to accomplish everything at once. Too many changes in short succession can lead to a chaotic experience for clients. You might also find that these new changes create new and unforeseen issues. Your team members, for example, will also need time to adjust to any new protocols or system updates. However, by creating a carefully thought-out and targeted action plan that progresses over time, you can bring about the changes that will strengthen your business.

With all the effort put into these new approaches, you want your client journey map to be future proof. It should be something that you can add to and change over the years as your client journey evolves. If you change too many things at once, you’ll probably have to create an entirely new map shortly after creating the first as you gain more understanding of the best way to approach desired changes.

The goals you set must be clear, straightforward, and timely. Know what you want to achieve, and when you want to achieve it. Our program focuses on several key areas highlighted below that produce high-performing operations.

Strategic Development – Using the client journey map we have crafted, we help your leadership teams develop a detailed client centric strategy that can be communicated, implemented, and executed to everyone in the company.

Operational Assessment – We will complete a diagnosis of the client expereince to verify what is properly functioning, what can be improved, and areas/functions that are creating material weaknesses in the organization.

In order to be a high performer, you need to embrace a growth mindset to develop power skills and leadership habits. This requires overcoming your complacence, fears, and self-limiting beliefs. It is an iterative journey, with each step improving your professional development.

The mindset, power skills, and habits for thriving PERFORMANCE are:

• Problem solving
• Engagement
• Resilience
• Flexibility
• Originality
• Resourceful
• Magnate
• Agility
• Negotiation
• Collaboration
• Exchange Information

P = Problem solving:

Confidence to use knowledge, facts, and data to see gaps and solve problems. Ability to share ideas and concepts with team and management. Open door to brainstorm, seek opportunities, and think outside the challenge.

E = Engagement:

Positivity and relatability to form deeper and fuller engagement with team, peers, and management. Bond of empathy by being genuine and demonstrating acceptance of alternate perspectives.

R = Resilience:

Strength to bounce back from set-backs, obstacles, difficulties, and failures. Confidence in ability to prevail and handle stress positively.

F = Flexibility:

Capability to learn, unlearn, and relearn. This is a must with the fast pace of new and emerging changes in job requirements, organizational pivots, industry trends, and technology.

O = Originality:

Courage to ask “why”, imagine new possibilities, and develop new opportunities and solutions.

R = Resourceful:

Embrace technology to keep pace with emerging fast-paced changes and the future of work.

M = Magnate:

Demonstrate empowered leadership and motivation to explore potential areas of growth and interest.

A = Agility:

Capacity to pivot and change direction according to needs of team, department, organization, market, or industry.

N = Negotiation:

Capability to find common ground with team, internal clients, external partners, and management to reach mutually beneficial goals.

C = Collaboration:

Ability to work effectively with team and managers to drive outcomes. Do this by sharing knowledge, contributing ideas, proactively considering alternate perspectives, flexibility to work with diverse styles, and building mutually beneficial relationships with team, peers, and management.

E = Exchange Information:

Clear, concise, and positive communication is a cornerstone of organizational success. Requiring confidence to present and share concepts succinctly while radiating interest in other view-points.

By working through each of these mindsets and skills, your team will be able to address the areas of improvement needed. This will allow for a thorough mapping of the client journey. Many of these skills tie into our psychological approach to development, especially in the areas of teamwork and growth mindset.

Team building is critical to achieve full group understanding for those engaged in the workshop. By keeping in mind effective forms of communication and collaboration, teams can strengthen their results and better address client needs.

Learning to apply a growth mindset within the realm of professional and workplace development is another step in determining a positive outcome for this program. Better yet is learning the practices needed to maintain a growth mindset. This method of thinking not only benefits employees on a personal level, including increasing self-esteem and confidence, but additionally benefits the organization by creating a workforce that knows how to maintain a genuine belief in the team’s capabilities. When employees believe that success is outside of their control, this impacts company outcome and environment negatively.

By instead shifting team members to have a growth mindset and an internal locus of control, there will be increased confidence and morale. When people believe that they and their team can have an impact on positive outcomes, they are more motivated to produce quality work, and feel better about their work outcomes. Even in the face of a setback, people with a growth mindset can maintain the thought process that tells them they still have control, and can continue working towards their desired outcome. This benefits the company overall by giving the company, as a group of individuals, a sense of control over its path forward.

Lastly, the recognition of the importance of human emotion and logic will strengthen the overall benefits of the program. It is critical to address and learn about how the client interacts with the business, and how those interactions are affected by these traits. Knowing how to build and leverage client trust will assist in ensuring that any client is a return client.

Critical thinking is another piece of learning to observe the client path and, most importantly, working to improve that path. Critical thinking allows the improvements made to be achievable and realistic, which are critical components of any successful program.

This program will strengthen your team’s understanding of the client journey through a focus on both thought processes and engaging business practices. This combination of a tried-and-tested foundational approach with human-centered growth is a powerful way to improve your ability to interact with and engage clients. This is because the workplace is a dynamic environment, and incorporating multiple perspectives and methodologies allows for a more responsive approach to client needs. There is no better way to develop the team and workforce needed to create the success you want to see.

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Executive Summary

History

Although the client has always played a vital role in all purchases for as long as people have been trading and selling, the way we now think of clients is a much more recent phenomenon. Historically, consumers had much less opportunity to sway sellers, whether in quality or price of their goods and services. Sellers and consumers were often stuck with each other due to geographical and transportation limits, and with smaller city populations, there was generally less competition, too. The same is true of historic B2B sales, as it were.

Consider an example of a weaver and a tailor centuries ago. A tailor would have depended on the one or two weavers in their area for all fabrics. With little or no competition among other weavers, the weaver would have had a sort of monopoly on their market. They could set their own prices, though with bargaining, the tailors would have had room to negotiate the price down. But ultimately, the tailor would have to buy the one weaver’s fabrics or be forced to travel far away to the next town to find another weaver. The relationship between the weaver and the tailor was fairly constant, with little outside influence to impact prices, quality of goods and services, or speed at which items were made available. Customer service was a largely unheard of concept; you either worked with each other or you did not, but there were not many opportunities to go to another seller or demand better service.

This dynamic began to shift during and soon after the Industrial Revolution, and as populations grew more generally. It became possible to produce goods more quickly and of greater quality. There were also more people and small businesses within the same industries and located in the same cities. This led to more options for the consumers, and thus, more competition among the sellers. It became necessary to differentiate yourself from others. Continuing with the above example, the weaver would need to keep the quality of their fabric high while maintaining fair prices. They may have started differentiating themselves from other weavers in terms of who they intended to sell their fabrics to. Friendliness and quality of service would also have become increasingly important in maintaining lasting business relationships.

At a certain point, the weaver would have no more room to either improve quality or maintain lower prices. Only so much can be done on either metric, and neither would be enough retain companies. Indeed, other weavers would be doing the same, working to achieve high quality and low prices. At this point, the weavers would need to work on improving another pillar of their business: the client experience.

Across industries, businesses discovered that the best way to compete was by forming strong relationships with their clients and potential clients. This needed to include both attracting clients and retaining the ones they had. As cities grew and transportation became both easier and quicker, businesses relied on good client relationships – both before and after the sale.

By this point, a business’s reputation would precede it. Were you friendly with clients? Did you treat them well and with utmost respect? Did you understand and address their needs? If you and your employees were pleasant to work with, clients would not only be likely to continue working with you, they’d also be likely to recommend your business for others in need of your product or service. This meant you were also getting warm referrals, further growing your client base.

By the 1980s, businesses around the world understood the importance of client retention. They understood how important it was to map out a client’s journey: Awareness, consideration, research, purchase, retention or loss, and finally discussion. The key to retaining versus losing clients was in the client experience. Keeping clients happy was in their best interest, and so they worked hard to do exactly that. Sellers still had significant power and control over their own narrative, aiding in how happy they could keep those clients. They were able to present their best side, so to speak, so that clients only saw what the seller wanted them to see.

However, with the age of the internet came a notable shift in that power. Buyers became much savvier, with a wealth of knowledge available at their fingertips. Not only could they connect with any of your current or past clients – both those where were satisfied with your business and those who were not – they could also glean greater insight into the inner workings of your business. Websites arose where consumers could provide their honest and unbiased reviews of any business – from the quality of their product or service to the quality of their customer service. Further, current and past employees had a forum to reveal what it was like working for a business, indicating to clients how well you truly treat your employees.

The power of the internet did not end there. Buyers were also more aware of where your products were manufactured and where your materials came from. For example, if they discovered your products are made in third-world country, in which workers are treated poorly and paid poorly, they may think badly of your business, seeing you as exploitative. Or if your products come from animals, and those animals live and die in bad conditions, that would be a red flag for many potential clients. With the rise of the internet, clients were less likely to be swayed by flashy marketing, relying more on good reviews of your business.

As such, the sales cycle became much longer. With clients doing so much research before moving forward with a seller, the seller must do more to ensure that their business is up to all standards. Whatever is happening within your business, clients can now know that, and it can make or break a sale.

If sellers want to keep their clients, they must accept that buyers will know nearly everything about your business. They must be ready to think like the client, build up a strong foundation for the client relationship, and continue to treat the client well throughout the entire sales process and beyond. It is quite different from where the seller-buyer relationship began hundreds of years ago, and indeed the changes has been fairly recent and rapid. But today, the client journey is perhaps the most important element of a business’s ability to sell.

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Current Position

In the modern world, most every seller and brand is well aware of how important the client journey is. Indeed, this can spell success for a business or failure. As such, client mapping is a vital component of any company’s success, especially long-term success. If your business does not have a solid client map – built on research and data analysis – it will prove difficult to attract and retain clients.

Of course, the first step – awareness – continues to be a vital part of establishing your business. But gaining new clients is a more difficult, more time-consuming, and more expensive process than retaining existing clients. Existing clients are highly likely to continue buying from and working with you, as long as their experience with you continues to be a good one. Further, those existing clients can aid greatly in getting you new clients, whether they directly refer contacts to you or simply provide positive reviews that other potential clients see and take into consideration.

Throughout the client journey, it is vital that each touchpoint is a positive experience for the client. Traditionally, these touchpoints would have happened in person, such as in your place of business or at an off-site meeting. However, with the advent of the internet, online shopping, and virtual forms of contact, more and more of these touchpoints are occurring online. In fact, depending on the industry and the goods or services a business provides, the entire client journey can take place virtually, and a business representative may never meet the client at all. This is true especially in B2C spaces, for example, for clients who order clothing from an online-only store.

In B2B sales, however, the relationship with your client is generally still closer and must be nurtured throughout each step of the client journey. Many of these interactions will take place in modern communication forms – over the phone, through email, via video chatting – but the nature of the relationship remains vital.

As mentioned before, sales cycles are often longer now, meaning the client journey, too, will be longer. It may take much longer for a potential client to move forward with your business in the first place, meaning it is imperative that the early portions of the client journey are well-mapped from your business’s end. How can you attract potential clients’ attention? How strong are your reviews from previous and existing clients? How can you foster a positive experience and develop a foundational relationship with the prospects and potential clients?

Most businesses today will have a client journey map from which they establish their best practices and continuously improve upon their clients’ journeys. These maps will include each of the major sections that define the client journey: Awareness, consideration, research and analysis, purchase, retention or loss, and discussion. (Note that some of these sections may go by different names, depending on the particular business or industry.) Under each of the above sections, a company will generally go into detail around particular elements, such as the touchpoints, motivators, and barriers that a client will face within each section. Or, a business may have client perceptions, risks, and opportunities within each section. It depends on what makes sense for the business.

How a business fills in this map requires solid information. To start, most businesses will adopt a standard model from which to adapt their own client journey map. However, as the company gains clients and grows overall, that client map needs to evolve with the business, taking data you have collected from your own clients. This will reveal strengths and weaknesses, allowing the map to become further fine-tuned.

From here, the client journey map must then expand even further. Which departments or employees will be present for each touchpoint within the client experience? For example, will the client interact with customer service? Sales and marketing representatives? Human resources?

Next, your business must establish the links between the different touchpoints. None of these steps occurs in a vacuum. Indeed, they are all closely interconnected. How does your client move from one touchpoint to the next? How smooth is that pathway? How can this link make or break the client relationship?

Further, it is imperative that you look closely at the emotions that are elicited at each touchpoint. How do you clients respond on an emotional level? What emotions do you want them to experience within your client journey?

On a related note, how is your company performing at each touchpoint? What is your internal perception, and how does this contrast from an external perception of your business? Your business, its departments, and the employees all play a role in how your client feels and behaves throughout the process.

Businesses that have a solid and ever-improving client journey map will have stronger client relationships and higher rates of retention. But if they stumble in this necessary step, clients can be lost and other businesses will scoop them up.

Although a client journey map is vital in businesses today, and most every business out there is using one for their own clients, there are some challenges, especially within B2B sales. B2B sales can be more complex, and it can be difficult to accurately identify each touchpoint. Businesses benefit from developing a good system for feedback from their clients. From here, they should develop an ideal experience for their clients.

The client journey map is just the start of an in-depth process to foster an effective process for your clients. It aids in instilling an important tenet of sales: thinking like the client. The client journey map is an evolving tool that businesses use today, further fostering solid client relationships. Likewise, the way clients and clients think about businesses, their products and services, and their interactions with businesses is always evolving. Within this rapidly changing world, it is vital that businesses pay close attention to what is working now, what is changing, and where that shift is trending. This will assure a good position when looking to what the future holds for sales and the client journey.

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Future Outlook

The client journey will continue to be of utmost importance for the success of any business, but it is also continuously evolving as the culture shifts and new technologies and norms emerge. Coming off of the COVID-19 pandemic, which drastically affected many industries and businesses throughout 2020 and is continuing to have effects even now and into the near future, there are new issues to resolve and opportunities to seize.

As of 2020, B2B companies are growing at a fast pace across a range of industries. However, in contrast to B2C companies, many B2B companies are still lagging behind in terms of focusing on the client experience. While B2C companies largely have strong use of client metrics and make good use of client journey maps, B2B companies today typically have much more room for growth in these areas. Client-facing B2C companies have already moved leaps and bounds ahead in improving the client experience, largely for ecommerce. How can B2B companies catch up?

B2B companies across the board must prioritize the client, if they are not doing so already. How can your B2B business better understand its clients? How can you implement, improve upon, and learn from a solid client journey map? To go into the future in a stronger position, B2B businesses must make use of new tools (especially digital tools) to better understand their clients, improve the client journey, and focus on client wants and needs.

In the rest of 2021 and through 2022, there are several B2B trends emerging that involve impacts to the client journey. As time moves forward, more and more clients are preferring less direct contact with sellers – at least to an extent. Most B2B buyers prefer a balance between traditional contact (in person and/or over the phone) and digital contact (websites and apps). How much contact they want greatly depends on what stage within the client journey they presently are at.

Research indicates that approximately 76% of B2B buyers find it helpful to have in-person or phone contact with a seller’s representative when they want to make a purchase of a new product or service. Whether they are new to your business or simply to this particular product or service you offer, most will want some traditional contact to help them through this process.

The number drops to 52% when the buyer is purchasing a product or service they have previously bought from you, but need it with different specifications. More than half of clients will want traditional contact during this phase. When buying the same product or service they have previously purchased, only 15% of buyers want contact with the seller.

Today, only 4% of buyers consistently want to have traditional contact with a seller throughout all purchases. The other 96% are perfectly content to limit contact depending upon what phase they are in and what they are purchasing.

(Note that those metrics will vary depending upon your industry, your business, and the specific clients with whom you work. You will want to collect data that better captures your clients and pivot accordingly.)

These metrics are important in understanding your clients, offering them what they want throughout the full client journey, and establishing capabilities to meet those desires. Within your client journey map, you must be prepared to meet your clients on their terms, meaning you will need to be ready to offer traditional and digital contact options. This will help in streamlining the client journey and client mapping.

Client relationships can be worth millions of dollars, especially for certain businesses and industries. As such, it is economically imperative to improve the client relationships and client journey as it continues to evolve in the 2020s.

There are further trends to consider within the client journey of B2B sales today, some of which are largely overlooked and may be a small surprise.

First, consider your company culture and how it relates to the client experience. Indeed, client experience is not a fully external force. Clients pick up on a company’s culture, and it can make or break a deal. A negative company culture can be disruptive or serve as a red flag to clients. In contrast, a good company culture indicates that your company will be easy to work with for the client. Going forward, consider what your company culture is now: How high is employee morale and satisfaction? How effective is internal communication? Once you have a solid understanding of your company culture, consider how you can improve upon it. What changes can you make within the organization? These changes will be noticed by clients, which can help improve their client journey.

Another trend will make sense to most of us, because we all want the same thing in our own personal lives: immediacy. We all want the internet to work fast, with web pages loading immediately and no buffer time on videos. Likewise, B2B clients expect a similar form of immediacy in working with your company. How can you achieve this? One method is by implementing automation technology within your company. Consider automated chat boxes and customer service helpers. As mentioned before, much of the client journey can happen digitally and without traditional contact. How can automation fill in those gaps while simultaneously offering immediacy in certain areas?

On a related note, another trend is eliminating the need to make purchases at all. In the B2C context, this can be exemplified by Amazon’s option to subscribe and save. A client subscribes to a product they regularly need so they no longer need to remember to buy it every so many weeks. The item simply shows up periodically. Or consider Uber, which has eliminated the need to have a form of payment on-hand. The payment is already saved in your account.

In the B2B context, this could look like a printer telling you when you are low on ink and ordering that ink for you. It becomes an automated process, making it ever easier for the consumer.

Moving into the future, many trends are already unfolding today, and they will only grow more prevalent as time moves forward. Having a strong handle of the client journey is imperative to ease the transition and be better prepared for the future.

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Curriculum

Sales Strategy – Workshop 1 – Client Journey

1. Key Managers, Team Members, and Stakeholders
2. Roles, Responsibilities, Timelines, and Milestones
3. Client Journey Map Approach
4. Buyer Persona
5. SAMI Mapping Framework
6. Sales, Relationship, and Client Strands
7. Activities within Client Journey
8. Methodologies: Touchpoints, Friction, Client Why, Gaps, Pain Points, and Excellence
9. Influences: Relationships, Reputation, Network Effects, and ESK (experience, skills, knowledge)
10. Growth Mindset, Humanity, and Psychology of Sales
11. Vision, Key Deliverables, and Procedures

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Distance Learning

Introduction

Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling in the Sales Strategy corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials, and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.

Study environment

You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family knows when you are studying and understands your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.

Study tools & rules

Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends, or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.

Successful distance-learning

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace, and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. You will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.

Self-assessment

Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.

Accepting responsibility as a student

Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it; it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways; this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement, and manage a personal study plan that works for you.

Planning

By far the most critical contribution to stress is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning, we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they do not! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change is far easier to manage and control than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.

Management

Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly, if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.

Study objectives & tasks

The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing; and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.

Study forecast

As a guide, the Appleton Greene Sales Strategy corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week. Calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them. These will be your milestones. You can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook; you could also use a financial forecasting software! Break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time; the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be. Finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance.

With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; and with your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented. Remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks. You also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant, and then break each single task down into a list of specific to dos – say approximately ten to dos for each task – and enter these into your study plan. Once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning, and this could constitute your study plan. You could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to undertake the tasks to achieve your program objectives.

Performance management

It is one thing to develop your study forecast; it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic, in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this, you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative, and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.

With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning. Consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.

With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan. Consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning. Consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning. Re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.

Keeping in touch

You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So do not be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.

Work colleagues and family

You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends, and family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop, and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so do not bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.

Making it relevant

The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times, you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners, or family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities, and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when, and why.

Distance-learning check-list

Prepare your study environment, study tools, and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.

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Tutorial Support

Programs

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing, and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.

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Support available

You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction. You then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently, the only reason that you should fail is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program; what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.

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Support Process

Please forward all of your future emails to the designated Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided. Please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding, and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.

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Time Management

It takes approximately one year to complete the Sales Strategy corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over one year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying, and the Sales Strategy program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene whether individuals take 12 or 18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.

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Distance Learning Guide

The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide, and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, and program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office, as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.

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How To Study

The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).

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Tutorial Support

Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Sales Strategy corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP) or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated PAM. This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the PAM efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly in the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.

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Tutorial Support Tips

Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.

Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails

Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you.” If you are positive and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive, and rewarding for you in the long-term.

Think about the impression that you want to create

Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude, and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. The good thing about communicating in writing is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, and you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene. This should help you to communicate more professionally and consistently, and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.

Remember that quality is preferred to quantity

Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague, and make a list of queries that you are likely to have, and then incorporate them within one email, perhaps once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application, and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests, and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The CLP Tutorial Support Unit needs to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.

Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers

Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.

Keep a record of your tutorial support emails

It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary, and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Individual training workshops or telephone support

Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunity learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrollment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, and it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Tutorial Support Email Format

You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the CLP Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.

Subject line of your email

Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.

Main body of your email

Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)

Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.

Question 1

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 2

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 3

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 4

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 5

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.

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Procedure

* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly in the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. If you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.

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How To Study

Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.

Planning your study environment

Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private, and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.

Planning your program objectives

It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.

Planning how and when to study

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important, however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths, and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.

Planning your study tasks

You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.

Planning your time

You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.

Keeping in touch

Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend on how able you to stick with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to incompletion.

Charting your progress

Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.

Making it work

To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development, and implementation.

Reading methods

Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.

Speed reading

When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.

Content reading

Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.

Making structured notes on the course manuals

When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in an MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result.

Organizing structured notes separately

You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as an MS Word Document, an MS Excel Spreadsheet, an MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity to cross-check and verify them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.

Question your understanding

Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.

Clarifying your understanding

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.

Question your interpretation

Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.

Clarifying your interpretation

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.

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Qualification Requirements

The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Sales Strategy corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as a Certified Sales Strategy Expert (CSSE). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations; assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical; they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.

Sales Strategy – Grading Contribution

Project Study – Grading Contribution

Customer service – 10%
E-business – 5%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 5%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 5%
Logistics – 5%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%

Qualification grades

A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene. You need not worry about this; it is all part of the learning process.

When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:

Pass with merit

A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory

Pass with distinction

An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory

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Preliminary Analysis

This section designs how a new team should approach the program and the first workshop. After reading this section, make sure to implement the action items given, all of which are summarized at the end.

To prepare for the program workshop, be sure to read through the entire content beforehand. This includes reading through the Profile, MOST, Introduction, Executive Summary, Curriculum, Distance Learning, Tutorial Support, How To Study, Preliminary Analysis, Course Manuals, Project Studies, and Benefits. By reading through the workshop, you will be primed for the course content and be more likely to readily absorb the new information in the workshop.

Next, create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to complete the program team blueprint. The team blueprint will identify the Program Lead Manager, as well as all other key managers, team members, and stakeholders who will be actively engaged in the program workshops. Remember to consider who will work best in each role. If not everyone who is relevant to this training can be present, make sure to carefully consider how any representative members within the program will communicate to others who are not directly involved.

In Workshop 1, there should be at least one team member from each department present as a key stakeholder. Within the next month, identify and engage each department-representing team member who will be participating in this first workshop. It is critical to have a team member from each relevant department assigned so that all team members entering the program have adequate time to review course content and complete the following preparation steps. Again, it is best to make this a task in your calendar, so that it is addressed and completed on time.

The key managers, team members, and stakeholders should be directed to central resources and arrangements for the program. To provide this to your team, designated a regular meeting time and place, as well as an information hub for all workshop tasks and related exercises. This will immediately allow for easy, consistent communication and collaboration for the team when the program has begun.

Reach for that calendar again! This time, create a task that will be completed within the next month and assigned to the Program Lead manager to collect and distribute any existing client journey map or client’s path-to-purchase chart to the key managers, team members, and stakeholders for review prior to Workshop 1.

All key managers, team members, and stakeholders should create tasks to review any existing client journey maps or client path-to-purchase charts prior to Workshop 1. This will familiarize the team with relevant past work, and allow for quick recall during the workshop.

To be fully prepared for the first workshop, it is necessary to read one of Carol Dweck’s books, as these will be highly relevant to the program content. Choose either Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, or Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential. While reading your chosen book, keep in mind the sections that draw your attention most, as this will be helpful for reflection within the course. It will also be helpful to consider how any of the content within the book already applies to your own life. Connecting new information to your own experiences not only helps you remember the information better, but this trick also assists you in gaining a deeper understanding of the content than just passive absorption.

Create another task on the team calendar, to be completed within the next month, for team members to review and list the historical sales, relationships, and client stages within their departments. While reviewing this information, consider the strong points of these achievements, such as a successful sale, and also consider any setbacks that were experienced. Additionally, if you are in the process of reading one of Dweck’s books, feel free to look for any connections between Dweck’s writing and your team’s personal experiences in business and sales.

In addition to reviewing historical sales and relationships, identify, review, and list the historical touch-points and activities in the client’s path-to-purchase. This can be its own separate task. Often, the genuine reasons for a client’s decision may be overlooked, especially in the light of a successful sale, but understanding the reasoning and thought processes behind these decisions is critical for increasing success.

As a part of this last reviewing task, identify key influences on the client journey. This ties into the path-to-purchase by carefully examining the steps in the process that either resulted in a sale or not. Influences can be external or internal, but it is best here to focus on internal influence—that is, influence on the client that came from within your organization.

Lastly, set up ongoing communication channels regarding the core deliverables of the participating members. This relates to team communication: it is critical for any effective team to have established expectations and an established system for addressing those expectations. With clear communication channels set for all tasks, team members will be able to execute their work efficiently and on time. This will help ensure program success by keeping everyone organized and on-track to complete the program.

In summary, the following tasks should be in your calendar, and completed, before the start of Workshop 1:

• Workshop content overview

• Complete Team Blueprint

• Identify and assign at least one team member per department

• Set up the time, place, and information hub for the team

• Program Lead manager: distribute any existing client journey map or path-to-purchase charts to team

• All team members: review any existing client journey map or path-to-purchase charts to team

• Read either Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, or Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential.

• All team members: review historical sales, relationships, and client stages within their departments

• All team members: Identify all historical touch-points in the client’s path-to-purchase and key influences on the client’s journey

• Set up ongoing communication channels for the program deliverables

By meeting each of these steps, a team will be fully prepared for Workshop 1.

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Course Manuals

Process Mapping

The understanding of your client journey today, along with how, when and where people connect with your business, has an increasing impact on the company growth and business development. The client journey is the foundation of formulating, building, and executing your sales strategy.

A client journey is the sum of all the interactions a client goes through in relation to your company. From the initial spark when a client learns about your product or services, to the actual purchase and post-purchase implementation/delivery. Each and every segment resembles a part of the client journey, filled with activities and opportunities to improve the client experience.

A client journey map is a visual illustration of the full client journey within your organization. It portrays the client’s experience in different phases of their journey. A client journey map is a holistic approach to understanding the experience flow a client has with your business.

Clients can come in contact with your company using a multitude of ways and from many different starting points – referrals, sales team cold calls, email campaigns, lead magnets, or in-person events. These are the initial sparks that begin the client journey. In order to create an amazing client experience, you will need to map the client journey, and then refine your processes to drive positive client interactions.

To create an accurate client journey map, we must include people from all over your business. Team members from different areas of the organization will be more familiar with unique aspects of the journey, how they work, and how clients experience them.

The team you assemble for the Sales Strategy program should include the key managers, team members, and stakeholders in your sales process. From a departmental perspective, including people from different areas of the business bring fresh insights to the client touchpoints, how they work, and what the client experiences at these junctures.

When bringing your team of change agents together, we will identify and define roles, responsibilities, timelines, and milestones. We will focus on the internal readiness and acceptance of the Sales Strategy program. This will include appraising the team member involvement, motivations, and related program workload. This will ensure full alignment within the organization to reach your goals.

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SAMI Client Journey Mapping Framework

We have developed the 5-Lane SAMI mapping framework that we find successful across all industries. Together we will use this as our overall strategy to mapping the client journey. We will establish our overall approach to the purchase journey across the five interlocking SAMI lanes: the sales, relationship, and client strands, activities, methodologies, and influences. This is where the client journey starts coming to life. Where we follow the client pathway across and through each phase of their journey.

The sales, relationship, and client strands are interconnected throughout the client journey. They support, influence, and play off one another throughout the client journey. They establish lanes with bridges that the client traverses during their journey.

Awareness Phase

The first phase of the client journey starts when a prospect starts interacting with your company. The awareness phase is about how the clients find out about your company. As an example, the journey could begin when a client is confronted with a problem and starts researching the internet in order to solve the challenge they are facing. The client journey through this phase runs from the initial spark to when the client connects to your company and becomes a lead. Demonstrating worthy intent, sincere interest, discovery, and active listening, is an important component in this phase.

Consideration Phase

Clients are now more informed than ever before. They will research your solutions, competition, reputation, and then evaluate your product or service. In the consideration phase your sales team is actively consulting and working with the client to understand how your product or service benefits them. In this phase of the client journey, you are cultivating your client relationship, finding common interests, and learning about their passions, while building a bridge to a deeper connection.

Decision Phase

In this phase, the client is examining whether they will select you as a provider. Ultimately deciding to make the purchase. This phase includes the negotiation and deal closing process of the client journey. At this phase you have built rapport with the client, uncovering the critical internal and external forces in your client journey so they are ready to move forward.

Champion Phase

The champion phase is when the delightful client experience translates to expanded opportunities. In this phase the implementation/delivery occurs where your product or service is executed. This phase also includes ongoing business, how you manage the relationship, and where you can grow within the client’s sphere. You are nurturing your relationship in this phase where your client feels secure, in control, and confident.

The associated activities are then layered into the lanes of the sales, relationship, and client strands. The same activities present themselves in different ways within each lane of the client journey. Activities include the spark, target ICA (Ideal Client Avatar), qualifying lead, client “why,” communication, delivering value, outreach, presentations, follow-up, negotiation, close, transition, account team, client care, ongoing business, QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) and expansion.

Spark

There are so many different ways a person may come in contact with your company – before, during or after they have purchased something from you. This includes moments that are both online and offline, in person, over the phone, and through marketing materials.

ICA (Ideal Client Avatar)

An Ideal Client Avatar, ICA, is a detailed profile focusing on a single buyer persona.

Qualifying Lead

An ICA should consist of five strict bullet points that you will not waver on. These five boxes will be unique to your business. You will not pursue any prospect who does not check all five boxes of your ICA checklist.

Client “Why”

Client perception equals truth. To truly connect with your client’s mindset, you must put yourself in their shoes.

Communication

Your communications should frame the client “why,” while incorporating the associated motivations and emotional triggers.

Deliver Value

Throughout the client journey, you need to be delivering value to your client. This keeps them engaged and drives interactions.

Outreach

Outreach is the cadence of a sequence of touchpoints with a client to establish a connection on their client journey. It starts at the first point of contact and continues through a sequence of planned interactions.

Presentations

Presentations are a valuable opportunity to relate to your audience, demonstrate your knowledge, and move your conversation forward.

Follow-up

A follow-up strategy is needed to keep the client engaged in the journey. It’s an important activity to avoid the pitfall of clients slipping through the cracks. A structured framework eliminates guesswork and maintains consistency along the client journey.

Negotiation

Outlining all your deal points, any associated options or tradeoffs, and establishing rules for exceptions delivers negotiation transparency. It’s also a powerful tool in the client journey, so you and your team can exert positive influence on the clients.

Close

With many B2B client journeys you negotiate while closing. We cover negotiation first because it provides the framework so you can close more effectively.

Transition

Transitions occur throughout the client journey. They act as bridges from one phase to another. Documenting where and how transitions occur within your client journey help you see areas where you can improve the client experience.

Account Team

While every business model is different, there is often a point in the implementation/delivery phase where the sales team transitions to the account team. This is a key process for the client experience.

Client Care

Just as the account team comes into play in the client journey, so does the client care or service team. It’s vital to capture these interactions on the client journey.

Ongoing Business

Once you have entered the implementation/delivery phase you will be interacting with the client with on-going business. These interactions are crucial for the client experience.

QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews)

QBRs are a proven method to keep the key decision makers and leadership of your client engaged in the client journey. They provide a platform to improve loyalty, increase retention, and position you for expansion.

Expansion

Expansion is the gold standard of the client journey. This is where you develop new business with your existing clients.

The following roles will be defined at this stage of the training to carry us through the entirety of the program: Program Lead Manager, Key Managers, Team Members, and Stakeholders.

The company will identify and engage a key manager to lead the internal team of key managers, team members, and stakeholders who will be actively engaged in all workshops. This individual will be referred to as the Program Lead Manager.

The Key Managers represented will include, but not be limited to, the leadership, sales, and marketing branches of the organization. And the Team Members will comprise of the sales department, along with a pick of marketing staff. Depending upon your business model, you may choose additional departments to have individuals in the role of Team Members.

Key stakeholders to be involved in the Sales Strategy program should include areas who serve the client. This may include a representative from your customer service call center, accounts payable unit, IT division, and product manufacturing. These individuals will participate in many of the training sessions, but not all.

Once your team of change agents is assembled, we will clarify and define their functional roles and responsibilities in regards to the Sales Strategy program. This will include the time requirements, tasks, and expectations outside and between the training sessions. Our goal is to provide the direction and facilitate positive engagement for the program team to thrive.

Now that our team is assembled and has clarity, we will begin mapping where we are: what your Client Journey looks like from the client’s perspective. We perform a deep dive into your current processes, systems, interrelated activities, and sales journey. This allows us to fully understand your starting point, processes that are working well, and the processes that need the most attention for full improvement. Utilizing the proven assessment tools and exercises we have developed, we formulate and assess your current situation. We keep asking questions to gain a clear understanding of your critical business requirements.

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SAMI Client Journey Mapping Framework

Our proprietary 5-Lane SAMI mapping framework has been found successful across all industries. Together we will use this as our overall strategy to mapping the client journey. We will establish our overall approach to the purchase journey across the five interlocking SAMI lanes: the sales, relationship, and client strands, activities, methodologies, and influences. This is where the client journey starts coming to life. Where we follow the client pathway across and through each phase of their journey.

This is the turning point where everything comes together. The development of the framework for the Client Journey. Together we are building a bridge between departments, team members, functions, roles, and processes. It is the cornerstone for your evolving sales strategy.

Activities

To effectively map your Client Journey, we need to think like your clients. This includes understanding how they behave, what they want, how it will benefit them, and what it will enable them to do. This is an important part of mapping the client experience which delivers significant benefits for your business.

Together with your team, we will identify the activities within your client journey. These activities include the spark, target ICA (Ideal Client Avatar), qualifying lead, client “why,” communication, delivering value, outreach, presentations, follow-up, negotiation, close, transition, account team, client care, ongoing business, QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) and expansion.

Spark

How does your client connect with your company?

What are these moments?

Where do they occur?

How does your client bridge their journey?

ICA (Ideal Client Avatar)

Who is it you want to connect with your company?

What is it you want your client to think about?

What is it you want the client to do?

When is the best time to connect with your client?

Where will the client be looking for information about your product or service?

Qualifying Lead

What client characteristics matter to your business?

Industry? Revenue? Size? Location?

What are the three primary client roles that you sell into?

What are their primary responsibilities?

What goals does your client have?

What are the client motivations?

Client “Why”

What does your client want, need, or lack?

What’s in it for the client?

What is the client’s desired outcome?

How does your client perceive the benefit?

Communication

How does your client communicate with your company?

Where do communications occur in the client journey?

Who manages these moments?

How do your internal teams bridge communications for the client journey?

Deliver Value

How does your client receive value from your company?

Where do you deliver value in the client journey?

Who manages the value delivery process?

How do you develop, plan, and execute value delivery in the client journey?

Outreach

Which methods of outreach do you utilize in the client journey?

What are the triggers you use to execute outreach efforts?

How do our teams coordinate outreach in the client journey?

Who manages the outreach methods?

Presentations

How does your client interact with presentations from your company?

What are the components of your presentations?

Who is responsible for crafting the presentations?

Who is involved with the client presentation management?

Follow-up

How does your company follow-up with the client on their journey?

What are the follow-up formats you use?

Where do follow-ups occur in the client journey?

Who is responsible for crafting, managing, and executing the follow-ups in the client journey?

Negotiation

Where does your negotiation process intersect with the client journey?

Who from your company interacts with the client at this stage of the journey?

How do you coordinate between departments and the client during the negotiation?

Who is ultimately responsible for the final negotiations deal points?

Close

Where in the client journey do you begin closing the client?

What closing methods do you utilize in the client journey?

What are the loops you encounter within the client journey to close?

How does your client interact with your company at this stage?

Transition

How does your company transition the client from sales to an account team?

How does this transition impact the client journey?

What are the various points of transition within the client journey?

Account Team

How does your company account team connect with the client on their journey?

What methods are used by your account team to support the client journey?

Where does the account team interact with the client on their journey?

How does your account team coordinate with other departments to support the client?

Client Care

Where does your client care team play an active role in the client journey?

What are these touchpoints and how are they performed?

How does your client care team coordinate with other departments to support the client?

Ongoing Business

How does your company support the client with on-going business?

What are these touchpoints and how are they performed?

How do you coordinate the ongoing business between your departments in the client journey?

QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews)

Where do you perform QBRs in the client journey?

How does your client interact with the QBRs from your company?

What are the components of your QBRs?

Who is responsible for crafting, managing, and executing the QBRs in the client journey?

Expansion

How do you incorporate client account penetration into the client journey?

What are the methods used to expand your business with the client?

How do you coordinate between departments to support expansion in the client journey?

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Process Analysis

We will utilize our proprietary 5-Lane SAMI client journey mapping framework to capture the nuances and details of your client experience. This is our foundational strategy to mapping your client journey. We will review our overall approach to the purchase journey across the five interlocking SAMI lanes: the sales, relationship, and client strands; activities; methodologies; and influences.

The SAMI process of mapping your client journey demands a clear methodology to identify touchpoints, pinpoint areas of friction, classify client “why,” look for gaps, reveal pain points, and establish areas of excellence. We will work through each of these facets to ensure they are incorporated into your strategic planning.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints are all the instances where clients interact with your company, product, service, and team members. In other words, anywhere they come in contact with your organization – before, during, or after they purchase from you. Touchpoints are a cornerstone in understanding the client experience, because this is where the events happen, including, as we will discuss below, the possible areas of friction, the openings and gaps, the pain points, and the areas of excellence. Common touchpoints are planned by your company, initiated by your client, and inherent within your product or service; some are also unexpected. We will establish what your touchpoints are, including uncovering those hidden touchpoints you may have overlooked. Knowing all of your touchpoints is vital in understanding the full client journey and improving upon it for your clients.

Areas of Friction

There are a myriad of possible areas of friction. Examples of friction include: places where expectations are not being met, unnecessary interactions with your representatives, overly complex pathways, or lapses in timely and effective communication. This is the tip of the proverbial iceberg and illustrates how vital these risks are once uncovered during our Client Journey mapping process. By identifying the various possible areas of friction, we can establish strategies in minimizing or eliminating those areas of friction and their negative effects on your clients. It goes without saying that we want to have as few areas of friction as possible, but the first step in minimizing them is in knowing where they are in the first place. We will find them and work to overcome them.

Client “Why”

While we will go into much more depth on the “Client Why” in module 3, classifying what your client is experiencing is crucial in the Client Journey mapping process as well. Examining specific behaviors, motivations, emotions, and common patterns helps us humanize the client and make the Client Journey mapping process more real. In fact, knowing the “Client Why” is a fundamental step in mapping the client journey. It is also instrumental in overcoming the previously mentioned areas of friction and the pain points we go over below. As we will discuss in module 3, though, it is also instrumental throughout the entire sales journey.

Openings and Gaps

There are areas of improvement in every organization. Our Client Journey mapping reveals where gaps may exist in the client experience. For example, one department may prove to be understaffed and thus be a cause of frustration for clients when they interact with this group. Similarly, problems in communication among internal team members or departments may also be revealed if agents are unable to obtain timely support from peers during service interactions. Our work mapping the Client Journey is ideal for understanding the gaps that need to be addressed. Once we understand where things are not working optimally, we can put action into improving upon them.

Pain Points

A pain point is a specific problem that prospective clients of your product or service are experiencing. However, they can occur internally within your business as well. Many people think of pain points as problems, plain and simple. Like any problem, client pain points are as diverse and varied as your prospective clients themselves. A key benefit of initiating the client journey mapping exercise is providing an awareness of the pain points that exist for your clients, and how severe they may be. Once we are aware of these pain points, we will be well-poised to overcome and resolve them. It is imperative to minimize pain points as much as we can.

Areas of Excellence

During the process of Client Journey mapping, we will acknowledge and seek to replicate areas of excellence. We will ask how a process, approach, or solution is working in one space, and how the principals can be applied elsewhere. Working together as a team, we will reveal these hidden gems. This knowledge will be useful in improving other areas to reach similar results so they can become areas of excellence as well. Our goal is to increase the number of areas of excellence, while simultaneously reducing the previously mentioned areas of friction. Indeed, these two objectives go hand in hand, but both begin with the vital first step: awareness.

Good sales strategy requires fitting various components together so that they work as a coherent whole. This encompasses multiple departments, functions, and requirements. Developing a client journey map requires exploring, evaluating, and choosing the objectives that will facilitate reaching your sales goals and improving the experience for your clients. Doing this will make those clients more likely to make an initial purchase, and, moreover, more likely to become long-term clients. The client journey map relates to another cornerstone we will discuss in module 4, nurturing lasting relationships.

This approach forces us to understand the experience from the time the buyer is figuring out whether their issue needs to be solved and is then considering different ways to solve it. Our objective is to uncover struggles that clients would have with any supplier, not just your organization. In this way, we can help you rise above other suppliers by offering a better, easier, and more pain-free process for the clients.

Ultimately, we want to make the client’s experience smooth, easy, and enjoyable. Mapping the Client Journey brings all the pieces together, delivering powerful benefits and laying the foundation for your sales strategy. The SAMI Client Journey map framework is an in-depth model enabling you to gain a clear understanding of where you are at now. It provides the means of understanding where your client journey is today, and how it will directly impact your company’s growth and business development.

The methodology we use in the SAMI client journey mapping framework is to identify touchpoints, pinpoint areas of friction, classify the client “why,” look for gaps, reveal pain points, and seek areas of excellence. This work is critical to not only understanding the current state, but to help us refine and innovate your client journey.

Identifying Touchpoints

Where does the client interact with your company?

How do they relate to their sales representative

Is there a physical location connection?

How do they find your website?

Does your client reach out to your customer service line?

Are they engaging in your social channels?

Are you meeting them at events?

Our focus is to identify and document all of the touchpoints where client s experience your business. While many of these touchpoints you are probably already aware of, there are also likely some touchpoints that are less obvious or overlooked. Knowing all of the touchpoints within the client journey is imperative, because each one can reveal different areas of friction, openings and gaps, pain points, or areas of excellence. They can also each reveal or speak to specific facets of the client why. Missing even one touchpoint can mean missing a significant piece of the puzzle, and it can result in unanswered questions with no way to solve. Asking the above questions will help uncover and fully understand each touchpoint.

Pinpointing Areas of Friction

What are known areas of friction in your client journey?

What does your client see during their interactions?

What do they experience with every interaction on their client journey?

What behind the scenes activities impact the client?

Are there internal processes that cause friction on the client journey?

What areas of the journey may your client feel negative emotions?

Using the SAMI framework with representatives from across your business, we will uncover areas of friction. Knowing all the areas of friction is critical, because these are the areas that most need your attention. Areas of friction can result in a client leaving you, an outcome you never want. To reduce that risk, we must uncover and understand each area of friction, then use that knowledge to fix it. How can we eliminate or at least minimize these areas of friction? How can we smooth them over to instead become areas of excellence?

Classifying the Client “Why”

What behaviors does your client exhibit in the client journey?

Where are their motivations revealed and what are the motivations?

How do the clients’ emotions present themselves during the client journey?

What common patterns manifest during the client journey?

Our goal is to humanize the client and better understand their perspective during the client journey mapping process. Understand they Client Why is necessary, because it leads to your ability to address their need, want, or lack. It enables you to answer their questions, address their concerns, and provide a solution to their problem. Not understanding their why means losing the opportunity to answer it. In order to avoid this losing outcome, we must answer the above questions in order to lock down the client why and prepare a solution for it.

Looking for Opening and Gaps

What gaps exist between client expectations and client perceptions?

Are there commonalities in these client journey gaps?

What are the client expectations and how can they be met?

How is the client perspective impacting their client journey progress?

What about internally between departments?

How and why are these impacting the client journey?

Are there processes which negatively affect the client experience?

These are opportunities within the client journey mapping process you can immediately address. We will evaluate which gaps have priority based on the key moments in the client journey which can make or break the client experience. As with areas of friction above and pain points below, we must locate the gaps and work to narrow or eliminate them. This requires a close look and critical thinking, both about where the gaps are and how they can be resolved. On the other hand, we must seize opportunities for growth and improvement. This can be what pushes the client over the edge to moving forward with your company.

Revealing Pain Points

What pain points are you aware of in the client journey?

Do specific departments have insights into pain points which are not common knowledge?

Are there too many steps in a particular process in the client journey?

What barriers must the client go around during their journey?

Is your response time creating a negative client experience?

What resources will be required to address the pain points in the client journey?

Which pain points need to be prioritized?

We will establish where the pain points are within the client journey, then work to alleviate and eliminate them. As described above, knowing the pain points means we must first know where they might occur, across the various touchpoints, but also from knowing the client why. Once we have answered the above questions and identified all the pain points we can, we must work to correct them, address them, minimize them, and eliminate them. Fewer pain points means fewer opportunities to turn clients away.

Seeking Areas of Excellence

What processes work smoothly and consistently in the client journey?

Where does your organization exceed client expectations?

What actions do the clients value and appreciate?

How can these areas of excellence be repurposed for other aspects of your business?

Areas of excellence are nice to know, of course, but they can also be telling in our efforts to improve your client journey and processes as a whole. What you are doing right here can be implemented in other areas, helping to turn them from pain points or areas of friction into new areas of excellence. It is a confidence boost for you, but also a valuable opportunity to improve all areas of your business.

Our objective is to make the map actionable: You want to empower people across your organization to improve the Client Journey. We are developing a journey map to use the insights gained to change processes and outcomes for the better.

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Process Re-design

We utilize the SAMI Client Journey map framework to gain a clear understanding of where you are at now. Understanding where your client journey is today will directly impact your company’s growth and business development. A delightful client experience creates positive client engagement.

Building your client journey map helps you understand your clients better. In turn, this means fostering a more productive cohesion between your team silos or business units. Through the mapping process, your team members gain a fresh perspective as to why each department needs to be closer to the client journey.

The four influence factors of relationships, reputation, network effects, and ESK (experience, skills, and knowledge) complete the SAMI mapping framework. Ultimately, we want to make the client ‘s experience smooth, easy, and enjoyable. The four influence factors of the Client Journey bring all the pieces together.

Relationships

Relationships are any existing connections between individuals and/or organizations. For example, an existing client could provide a warm referral of your product or service to a peer. A key influence within our client journey mapping process is relationships. These are any existing connections between individuals and or organizations. For example, an existing client could provide a warm referral of your product or service to a peer. Or your production manager is co-coaching the softball team with a senior executive at a firm you would like to be doing business with. Developing and nurturing relationships is instrumental to your company’s success and especially in creating a connection with your prospects and clients. Fostering a strong client relationship will make them want to work with you and keep working with you, creating a client who is loyal to and even a champion of your company. Building the relationship is crucial to the client journey, and must be addressed and nurtured at each stage of the client journey. From awareness and past the point of purchase and into the future, the client relationship is crucial to keeping your clients with you for the short- and long-term.

Reputation

While reputation appears obvious, there are many components that impact the perceived standing of your organization. This could be a bad review on Google, or a whispered conversation at a conference. The influence of your reputation is critical, since it not only attracts client s, but it also keeps them away from you. There are many components that impact the perceived standing of your organization. We will analyze who, where, and how your reputation influences your client journey. Remember that your reputation will always precede you, and you want prospects and potential clients to have a good first impression of you. If their impression of your company is bad, that may turn them off from ever considering working with you. At best, you would still have significant damage to undo just to improve their opinion of you from negative to neutral to positive. In contrast, a good reputation can give you a leg up, making you a natural choice for many prospects and thus easing your workload in attracting clients. We will work to understand and improve your reputation.

Network Effects

Documenting network effects within the client journey is focused on achieving closer relationships with our clients and prospects. As an example, these influences include impressions from PR, social chatter, and events. Note: for clarity, we do not use the term network effects as a value of a product, service, or platform depends on the number of buyers, sellers, or users who leverage it. As with reputation above, the network effects can influence prospects’ opinion of you before you have even had a conversation with them. You must critically consider the messaging with your PR and on social channels. How can you put your best self forward? How can your messaging best appeal to your ideal clients’ why and their motivations? We will answer and act on these questions.

ESK (Experience, Skills, Knowledge)

Finally, the collective ESK (experience, skills, knowledge) of your team is key to establishing competence, credibility, and trust. The ESK influence in your client journey map is a core area of strength. This collective ESK of your team plays an important role in influencing your client experience along their journey with your organization. How do your company and your team members’ experience, skills, and knowledge match your ideal client’s why, motivations, emotions, and so on? How can this ESK best be put to use in reaching your clients and helping them along the client journey? How can your collective ESK be improved upon or better utilized or better communicated? This is a vital element of establishing the optimal client journey.

This is the turning point where everything comes together. It is the development of the framework for the Client Journey. Together, we are building a bridge between departments, team members, functions, roles, and processes. It is the cornerstone for your evolving sales strategy, and we will build upon it in future modules on your own journey to mastering an evolving but so important sales climate. The Client Journey is foundational and will be instrumental in future lessons, processes, and actions throughout the sales journey. By doing this groundwork early on, the other steps in future modules will come into place more naturally, enable a smoother experience with heightened results. Your company will have the tools needed to excel and stand out.

This approach forces us to understand the experience from the time the buyer is figuring out whether their issue needs to be solved and is then considering different ways to solve it. Our objective is to uncover struggles that client s would have with any supplier, not just your organization. This knowledge will allow you to stand out from the competition and stand tall as the best choice for your clients. You will prove to clients that you truly understand their wants, needs, or lacks. You will also prove that you are fully ready to address them each step of the way. By putting the client first, thinking like the client, and establishing an accurate client journey map, you will be well poised to be the answer to their client why.

As we follow the SAMI client journey mapping framework, we help you identify objectives, tasks, and priorities. By taking this approach to your client journey, you are brought closer to the real things that make your business work. It provides you the opportunity to make changes and assess their benefits on the fly. This can then drive your decisions and goals for your sales strategy going forward.

Our final step within the SAMI client journey map framework is to perform a deep dive to determine existing relationship assets, review market or industry reputation, evaluate networking effects, and assess resources, knowledge, skills, and experience. These are the influences that directly impact your client journey.

Determining Existing Relationship Assets

What existing connections between individuals influence the client journey?

What existing connections between organizations influence the client journey?

How do warm referrals impact the client journey?

How do shared relationships influence the client journey?

This is an opportunity for all the participating team members to perform a brain dump. Encourage all team members to share their ideas and insights. Diverse and unique perspectives are valuable, as they can uncover hidden and less obvious connections that prove instrumental in improving relationships. Comprehensively and uncritically expressing and recording every possible relationship that may exist with clients is crucial. Consider all the relationships within your organization, both internally and with external clients, partners, and more. From here, we will identify areas to improve upon, as well as the areas of excellence from which to learn.

Reviewing Market or Industry Reputation

How do you showcase your culture to influence the client journey?

Where do you share your values to influence the client journey?

What are you doing as an organization to minimize carelessness in your social media?

Do you have bad reviews on the internet?

Do you have recurring quality or delivery issues?

Have your client survey results indicated a common negative client experience?

Are there pockets of weak professional ethics within your organization that are impacting the client journey?

There are so many ways your reputation, which you spent years building, can be destroyed in five minutes. We need to get comfortable with this uncomfortable topic to identify and mitigate challenges to your reputation. Think honestly and critically about the above probing questions, as well as other areas in which your reputation may be suffering. From there, we will work on mitigating the issues and improving your reputation, putting your business in a better position for success. Reputation is among the first things prospects and potential clients will know about your business, and you want to ensure it is a good first impression, not one that turns them off from you.

Evaluating Network Effects

What are the network effects within the client journey?

What are the impressions from your PR?

How does the social chatter around your company influence the client journey?

Which events directly impact the client journey?

Together we will brainstorm all of the network effects that influence your client’s experience with your organization. As with reputation above, knowing your network effects is imperative in better controlling your company’s narrative and putting your best self forward. How can your company’s output and messaging improve? How can you gracefully redirect talk around your company towards more positive messaging? This goes hand in hand with reputation, and the two can influence each other.

Assessing the ESK (Experience, Skills, Knowledge)

What is the level of experience across your organization?

What does the experience breakdown look like across departments and roles?

How does this experience translate to the client journey map?

How does the client learn of your experience prowess?

How does your organizational experience influence the client?

What skills are highly refined with your company?

What do the skills look like across departments and roles?

How does your organizational skill set translate to the client journey map?

How does the client learn of your advanced skills?

How do your organizational skills influence the client?

What is the knowledge obtained across your organization?

What does the knowledge level look like across departments and roles?

How does your company’s knowledge translate to the client journey map?

How does the client learn of your knowledge?

How does your knowledge influence the client?

Just as it is critical to understand the full client journey, it is important to pinpoint critical moments that often result in make-or-break decisions for your clients. Together, we identify the moments that lead to your clients walking away, as well as the ones which persuade them to move forward with you. We all know which result you want; the key is in getting prospects down the path to you, not away from you. What will influence your clients one way or the other? How can you encourage clients to work with you rather than turning to a competitor? At each stage of the client journey, we build the bridges to and between paths, activities, influences, and team dynamics. This puts you in a better place in guiding the client journey with positivity.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a key aspect of any well-developed plan. By interlacing the strengths of critical thinking into any project or strategy, a stronger outcome can be achieved. The reason for this is that critical thinking allows honest evaluation of any situation. Making controlled judgements about your goals, needs, and obstacles is the best way to recognize mistakes, as well as develop stable plans that will realistically get you where you need to go.

Critical thinking requires taking a less subjective and less precious view your organization and its strengths and weaknesses. While complete objectivity is not expected or even possible, do aim to look at the above questions with honesty, from alternate view points, and without emotion or ego influencing your answers. This is crucial in gaining a clear and accurate picture of where your company stands. That, in turn, will allow for better process improvement, thus leading to more impactful results. Answering these questions will make your business stronger and better prepared for a positive and fruitful client journey – a win-win for you and your clients.

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Process Resources

A key component to creating an accurate client journey map is creating buyer personas. A buyer persona is a profile representing a particular group of people, such as a group of clients in specific roles, industries, market segments, or a stakeholder group. They help us relate to the groups as individuals and provide the context needed when mapping their experiences with your organization.

Together, we will create a primary buyer persona for the client journey mapping exercise. Optimally, this persona exemplifies your target client. We will define their role, their industry, their goals, and their motivations. Tapping into the sales team members’ knowledge will help us avoid assumptions and stereotyping, instead creating a buyer persona that is accurate and useful.

Creating a robust buyer persona requires asking questions that clarify their connection to a specific problem, situation, product, or service. What are their expectations of your product or service? What are they trying to accomplish? What is their purpose for using your product or service? What do they want, need, or lack? Are there specific pain points they are experiencing and trying to overcome? What questions do they need answered? What really matters to them? This relates to the “Client Why,” which we discuss in much more depth during module 3.

To complete fleshing out your buyer persona, we will want to gather additional facets. What does a typical day look like for them? What tasks do they need to accomplish? What channels of communication do they use or how do they communicate? How do they make decisions? Which people or situations influence their decision-making process? These questions may feel harder to answer at first, but they are crucial in locking down a solid buyer persona.

Human Behavior

As we explore the buyer persona in your client journey, we will tap into human behavior. We can forget that clients are human beings just like us. Remembering this key truth at all times is vital. No one wants to be treated like just another sale, just a number. Keeping the buyer’s humanity in mind will allow us to better relate to them, better serve them, and develop a stronger relationship with them. This, in turn, translates to keeping the client happy with your business throughout the client journey.

Five Senses

Our client s experience life through their five senses. They unconsciously connect with emotion and memory through their innate human ability to perceive the world using sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste. The more the client experience reaches each of these five senses, the stronger the memory that is created and the more likely they are to recall the experience. Tapping into these five senses will form a stronger bond and emotional experience with your brand, making them more likely to stay with you.

Emotions

Therefore, we want to seek opportunities within the client journey where your company can tap into the emotions that are unconsciously engaged in the client. This requires some out-of-the-box thinking to make sense of the client and produce a positive experience. We will actively seek to identify the emotions of the buyer persona and come up with actionable ideas to engage those emotions. Much as many people like to think they make buying decisions that are always objective and logical, all buyers are emotional to some degree. This makes it necessary for your company to understand and tap into those emotions. Understanding your ideal client, through your buyer persona, will make this easier and more effective.

Motivations

Another common human behavior is hidden motivations. We need to identify these with the buyer persona to enhance the client journey map. Clients have deep-seated desires that need to be satisfied during their sales journey. It is important to remember that client s are more interested in what your product or service can do to solve their problems and address their pain points than they are in your actual company. Keep their true motivations in mind in order to better serve their want, need, or lack.

Recommendations

Another human behavior is that we are hardwired to first trust recommendations from people we know. This even applies to clients who think of themselves as freethinkers. Crafting a buyer persona that incorporates this trait to use in the client journey is therefore important. Our goal is to create an experience that delights the client and will position your organization to transform clients into champions. Champions of your organization will lead new clients your way, and those referrals will be warmer and more open to your business than any cold call prospect would be. Existing clients, if happy with and enthusiastic about your organization and product or service, can be the most effective members in gaining new client s. This is an important and desired domino effect.

By combining critical thinking with human emotion, a more accurate, thorough buyer persona and subsequent client journey map can be crafted. Human emotion carries us through life and helps develop strong connections, but critical thinking is needed to effectively plan and develop long-term goals. By combining these aspects of the human experience, your team can strengthen all aspects of client interaction and achievement.

Our goal in creating a buying persona is to prevent you from getting stuck in an inside-out perspective of the client journey. This is the “client-will-purchase-from-us journey” because it is grounded in a biased view that the prospect will become a buyer of your products or services.

We need buyer personas to capture an accurate client journey map. They enable us to incorporate alternate viewpoints and a better understanding of the client experience. This, in turn, leads us to why it is crucial to include people from all over your business when creating the client journey map. Team members from different areas of the organization will be more familiar with unique aspects of the journey, how they work, and how client s experience them. This knowledge and insight must be used to the company’s advantage, allowing for a more nuanced and holistic approach to reaching and engaging your clients.

At first glance, creating your buyer persona for the client journey map process may seem apparent. Especially if you take the shortcut of modeling the persona after a specific existing client. However, creating your buyer persona is an essential building block of capturing the big picture of your client journey.

We will focus our efforts on crafting one buying persona to utilize for the client mapping journey. Optimally, this persona exemplifies your target client. The first step is to define their role, industry, goals, and motivations. Tapping into the sales team members’ knowledge will help us avoid assumptions and stereotyping. We will utilize input from all team members so that the information we work with is nuanced and complete.

The second step to craft a robust buying persona is asking questions that clarify their connection to a specific problem, situation, product, or service. Identify the distinct problem, situation, product, or service for the buying persona. Then answer from the perspective of the buyer persona:

What are their expectations of your product or service?

What are they trying to accomplish?

What is their purpose for using your product or service?

What do they want, need, or lack?

Are there specific pain points they are experiencing and trying to overcome?

What questions do they need answered?

What really matters to them?

What does a typical day look like for them?

What tasks do they need to accomplish?

What channels of communication do they use or how do they communicate?

How do they make decisions?

Which people or situations influence their decision-making process?

Those questions are an excellent and broad stroke first step. However, for more specific and detailed answers, you will want to ask questions that fall into different categories: human behavior, the five senses, client emotions, client motivations, and recommendations. Asking the right questions will help you glean information that will prove critical in better understanding your clients and thus addressing their needs. This, in turn, will mean an improved opportunity to gain and retain the client, fostering a stronger relationship.

Human Behavior

How can your thoughts about your work impact your actions?

What choices can you make to positively impact your day?

How do you respond to setbacks?

How can your choices impact others in a positive way?

What areas of this scenario can you control? What areas are out of your control?

How can you best leverage the parts of the work that are within your control?

Remember that a part of your best strength in any situation is choosing a growth mindset. Put yourself in the buyer personas shoes and ask questions like those above, which allow you to reflect on your client ‘s environment. Even when you may think they are in a limited, difficult situation, by focusing on the areas you can improve, you can position your product or service as the best path forward.

Five Senses

What will a client be visualizing when they think of the outcome of your work with them?

How do daily scents impact your work experience?

What would leave the client with a bad taste in their mouth, so to speak?

What will a client want to hear from you at the end of your work? What would you want to hear from the client?

How can you make sure to keep in touch with a client after a project is complete?

This one may seem weird, but if you ask the right questions, you can glean a lot from how a client responds about appeals to the five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Apply these basic components of everyday life to how you think about the client and project’s outcome.

Emotions

What is important to you as a [job title]?

What is the easiest part of your day?

What is the hardest or most challenging part of your day?

If you could eliminate one daily activity, what would it be?

When working with other businesses, what has made that a positive experience for you?

As much as most people like to think that they make purchasing choices exclusively based on logic and objectivity, all of us are emotional buyers when it comes down to it. By asking a client about their emotions, you are getting a feel for what will sway them subconsciously. How can your solutions meet their emotions? How can you present your product or service to appeal to their emotional side? Answers to these questions will help.

Motivations

Why might you choose to put in more work on a project?

How can a team environment impact motivation?

Does the way you think about your work impact your outcomes?

Do you believe you can focus on positive aspects of an activity to be better motivated?

How can long-term thinking improve your short-term motivation?

Can you utilize connections in your workplace to strengthen your motivation during a project?

Asking questions about a client’s motivations (and hidden motivations) will prove crucial in identifying what they want, need, or lack, and it will enable you to address how your product or service meets those motivations. By speaking to their motivations, you are speaking to the side of them that wants a solution that they know will work for their needs.

Recommendations

Have you worked with / used [x company, product, or service]? How was that?

Would you recommend [x company, product, service, or person]? Why or why not?

You can also get valuable recommendations or endorsements by asking either direct or indirect questions about another company, person, product, or service.

This approach to crafting the buyer persona will prevent us from getting stuck in an inside-out perspective of the client journey (the “client-will-purchase-from-us” journey). We want an unbiased view from the buyer persona in regards to your products or services. This approach to crafting the buyer persona enables us to produce an accurate client journey map. Use the questions above to get started, but also feel free to add questions of your own that better fit you company, product, or service, as well as the specific client you are talking to. This will prove valuable in the client experience and the client journey.

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Process Communications

The following roles will be defined at this stage of the training to carry us through the entirety of the program: Program Lead Manager, Key Managers, Team Members, and Stakeholders.

Roles

The company will identify and engage a key manager to lead the internal team of key managers, team members, and stakeholders who will be actively engaged in all workshops. This individual will be referred to as the Program Lead Manager.

The Key Managers represented will include, but not be limited to, the leadership, sales, and marketing branches of the organization. And the Team Members will comprise of the sales department, along with a pick of marketing staff. Depending upon your business model, you may choose additional departments to have individuals in the role of Team Members.

Key stakeholders to be involved in the Sales Strategy program should include areas who serve the client. This may include a representative from your customer service call center, accounts payable unit, IT division, and product manufacturing. These individuals will participate in many of the training sessions, but not all.

Team Composition

The team you assemble for the Sales Strategy program should include the key managers, team members, and stakeholders in your sales process. From a departmental perspective, this will include sales, marketing, management, and operations. These are the core groups that will attend every training module and be the change agents within your business.

With their boots on the ground, all members of the sales team should participate in the training. This includes sales management, support roles, and customer service. If it is not feasible to include the entire sales team, you may instead select individuals who are representative of the group as a whole, running the gamut of product and service experience, tenure, and volume.

Your highest marketing role with the organization, or their chosen representative, should participate in all training modules. Depending upon your business model, you may want to include several marketing team members. And certainly, a wider segment of the marketing department should be engaged in the Client Journey.

The marketing team has constant indirect and behind-the-scenes involvement in the client journey. Steps like creating lead magnets, managing social channels, and implementing email outreach campaigns barely scratch the surface of the marketing touchpoints in the client journey. They will also be heavily engaged, as they are now, in supporting the sales team in your evolving sales strategy.

Your management/leadership team will want to be present during all modules to drive the actions and steps required to achieve your strategic objectives. The Sales Strategy program is built to grow your sales, and therefore your business. While it may not be viable for your full management/leadership team to attend, choose the individual who will be the driving force for the program.

Your operations team and management must be included in the Sales Strategy training. To capture the entire Client Journey, this first training module should include operations team members from manufacturing and production, shipping and logistics, and support services. People from different areas of the business bring fresh insights to the client touchpoints, how they work, and what the client experiences at these junctures. An example could be your customer service team who may interact with client s daily, hear their frustrations, and see areas of friction.

Finally, client interaction representatives from the administrative, IT, HR, finance, security, and supply chain departments should participate in this first training module. Accurately mapping your Client Journey relies on input from every client touchpoint, from accounts payable to the security requirements for a client plant tour.

Bringing your team of change agents together is an important step to help them work together effectively. By setting context for what the overall team is responsible for, we can effectively clarify individual responsibilities and find gaps that need to be filled. From there, we will then discuss specific tasks, review ideas, establish dates, and prioritize.

All team members attending and actively engaging in every workshop, they will meet between training sessions to further develop concepts acquired, complete assigned exercises, and seek opportunities to grow. It is vital to be actively listening to their counterparts in different silos to gain a high level of understanding of the client experience across the business.

At this time, clear roles and responsibilities will be defined to establish a structure for the workshop team. The company program manager, participants, and invited stakeholders will be confirmed. We will also establish the guardrails for overall involvement and workload requirements. Finally, by leveraging a positive environment, a team that utilizes a strong growth mindset will have been developed and will be ready to create the client-based deliverables effectively.

To meet their responsibilities, your team of change agents requires a growth mindset. A growth mindset is where individuals believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Your team needs to embrace a love of learning and pushing their boundaries. A growth mindset encourages curiosity to ask why, pursue alternate viewpoints, and a resilience to move through challenges.

In addition to all team members attending and actively engaging in every workshop, they will meet between training sessions to further develop concepts acquired, complete assigned exercises, and seek opportunities to grow. It is vital to be actively listening to their counterparts in different silos to gain a high level of understanding of the client experience across the business.

Timelines

Timelines are extremely important throughout the Sales Strategy program. They help the team visualize and synchronize tasks, set deadlines, and define potential delays. Clearly communicating expectations and schedule requirements will foster effective team building. Furthermore, we want, need, and deserve the full engagement of every team member.

Milestones

Milestones are powerful components in this program because they showcase key stages, highlight accomplishments, and map the forward movement in your Sales Strategy. A milestone is a marker in the Sales Strategy program that signifies a change or stage in development. Milestones act as signposts through the course of your program, helping ensure your team members stay on track.

A final building block to discuss in a strong team is respect. This goes beyond the basic respect expected not just in the workplace, but in every area of life. Recognize and respect that other team members are people, and that everyone will make mistakes. Make sure to keep in mind others’ successes even against their failures. In most teams, there will be an ebb and flow of intense work, and it is important that everyone keeps respect at the forefront of their thoughts in a stressful work period.

Additionally, we will develop a procedure to maintain close connections with your key managers, team members, and stakeholders. This will allow for more frequent and thorough evaluations of the team’s progress in the program, and it will ensure that the program meets the needs of the team.

Throughout our work together, we will be transparent and actively seek ongoing assessment. This will provide us with crucial feedback on the program deliverables, achievements, and any needed adjustments. We welcome your valuable input to adjust the program to become even more effective in the future, in addition to benefiting your team as the program progresses.

To meet their responsibilities, your team of change agents requires a growth mindset. A growth mindset is where individuals believe that their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Your team needs to embrace a love of learning and pushing their boundaries. A growth mindset encourages curiosity to ask why, pursue alternate viewpoints, and a resilience to move through challenges.

To fully realize the learning, benefits, and opportunities revealed in the SAMI client journey mapping framework, your team will be adopting a growth mindset. This means letting go of the status quo, rejecting complacency, exploring alternate perspectives, and recognizing previously hidden opportunities. Our activities and exercises are specifically designed to expand critical thinking.

Our exclusive growth mindset exercises give you the tools your team needs to shake their paradigm, reframe their mindset, and shift their self-imposed limiting beliefs.

The growth mindset exercises include:

• Accomplishments Worksheet
• Automatic Thoughts Log
• Constructive Criticism Worksheet
• Reframing Flaws Worksheet
• Strengths & Opportunities Worksheet
• Managing Emotions Worksheet
• Identifying What’s Holding You Back Worksheet
• Affirmations Worksheet
• Value Vault Workbook

Our goal is to help your team perform a blame free analysis and to ask themselves questions and tease out the deeper causes of their behavior. It is a fact-finding mission, to identify patterns, and observe where your team has felt blocked. Once your team has identified their limiting beliefs, there are six techniques to overcome them. These are understanding their purpose, questioning the limiting beliefs, laughing at them, formulating new beliefs, retraining your brain, and finding inspiration.

In the first technique, understanding their purpose, you can use time travel, as many of our self-limiting beliefs are formed early in life. With this technique you describe your upbringing. What were your parents or caregivers like? Their values? What did they teach you about the world? What about your wider environment, like school, extended family, local community, and/or religious institutions? What did they teach you about yourself? As you grew older, which of these early lessons did you react most strongly against? What did you learn about yourself that contradicted what you’d been taught? These are just some questions to get you started with time travel to gain an understanding of the purpose for the self-limiting beliefs. The idea is to get a clear picture of the environment you grew up in and how it shaped your belief formation.

The second technique in achieving a growth mindset is to question any limiting beliefs you have identified. This step of recognition allows you to objectively step back and question why your limiting belief exists and how it impacts you.

Consider how having this belief limits you, and imagine a scenario where you are incapable of feeling you are limited in this way. An example is, many people believe they are bad at math, and they may believe that this will always be the case. If a student goes into an exam with this belief, they are more likely to have poorly prepared for the test, because they already expect to fail no matter what action they take. Instead, if they recognized that they could in fact achieve better grades because they were not fundamentally limited in the subject, they may take-action to study. Studies have shown that even having encouragement to do better will generally produce better outcomes—not that studying should be replaced solely with gold-star stickers.

Another helpful way to address your limiting belief is to imagine a conversation with a friend. Can you imagine your friend expressing to you that they thought this limiting belief about you? If you have good friends, they would probably never express this – they would only offer encouragement, and belief in your abilities. If your friends believe in you, why should you not believe in yourself? Trust in their judgement.

The next step is laughing at your self-limiting beliefs to shift into a growth mindset. Humor can be an effective unblocking tool. It’s hard for something to have power over you when you’re laughing at it. Make jokes out of your limiting beliefs. Take them to extremes and come up with absurd scenarios that make you laugh, or at least not take yourself and your beliefs so seriously.

The fourth technique to overcome self-limiting beliefs and adopt a growth mindset is formulating new beliefs. To break the power of your old beliefs, you also need to replace them with new ones. You need to believe in something to make sense of the world and to give yourself a stable foundation for navigating it. So, for each of the limiting beliefs you’ve identified, turn it around and formulate a new belief that’s more in line with your values and that’ll support you in achieving your goals.

Retraining your brain is the fifth effective technique to help you embrace a growth mindset and quell self-limiting beliefs. Let us return to the concept of an internal locus of control. Recall that life events may be what lead people to have what we’re trying to change: an external locus of control. It is not easy to overcome events you have experienced that lead to any self-limiting beliefs, in part because life experience is very real. To retrain your brain, you will need to take conscious steps to implement growth mindset thoughts, and you will need to actively choose an internal locus of control. Whenever you find yourself following your limiting beliefs, take a second to recognize this pattern, and then instead pivot to a growth mindset.

The last technique in achieving a growth mindset is finding inspiration. Often, the best motivation to grow comes from new interests and passions. Next time you find an area that interests you, consider how you can take-action to achieve success there. This can be in the workplace, but it can also be a hobby or life skill. An example is learning a new instrument. There is lots of evidence that at any age, people can develop new skills and become proficient, but instead what we often hear is that new activities, such as music, should be left to young people. This is a limiting mindset, and it is also discouraging people from pursuing passion and following inspiration. Anyone can become better at something if they are passionate and want to dedicate some time. Once you have found your source of inspiration, you can begin to really implement a growth mindset on a daily basis.

These growth mindset exercises for introspection deliver powerful and proven advantages to your team. They help us open our prism to account for logic and emotions during the client journey. People making business decisions and purchases experience emotions during the process. Feelings of anxiety or double are normal human experiences. By accounting for your client’s logic and emotions in your client journey maps we are able to develop an accurate portrayal of their experience.

Together, we will be embarking on a deliberate cultural shift to create the changes needed to improve the client experience. The interrelated endeavors include refining organizational processes, systemic transformation, technology approaches, and team synergy.

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Process Review

To truly develop a highly effective team, a key component in the process is team building. Naturally, an important area to start with in the development of team building is communication.

Effective communication is the most straightforward, surefire way of creating a strong team. To have trust in your co-workers, a great deal of the initial foundation is built on the ability to communicate. When another team member can clearly express their expectations, needs, questions, and concerns to another member, then effective work can be done, but, perhaps most importantly, those team members have an understanding of their expectations. All team members in this program must consider what their colleagues need to know to be successful. Oftentimes, conflict within a team is rooted in the fact that there has been miscommunication about an important task or requirement. By clearly communicating a rubric for the work, teams can ensure they are on the same page.

Once this initial cornerstone of team building has been placed, more precise support systems can be developed. A group not only needs to have good communication – the best groups also have a deep understanding of everyone’s areas of expertise. Teams work more effectively when they take into account that, even if a task is assigned to one person, another group member may still make meaningful contributions if the task relates to their expertise. Members should therefore be encouraged to seek feedback and input from all relevant team members. Instead of keeping everyone in their own “lane” or enforcing a strict hierarchy that does not make room for input from lower-level employees, it is best to foster an environment of respect for all team members, regardless of their level in the company. Encourage input from all employees, because their unique perspectives and insights may spell untapped ideas and thus success for your company. If some team members are reluctant to speak up on their own – perhaps due to shyness or a lack of confidence – ask them directly. Also consider asking them and in a setting that makes them more comfortable. For example, some may be uncomfortable speaking up in front of a large group, but can be more forthcoming in smaller groups or one-on-one.

A final building block to discuss in a strong team is respect. This goes beyond the basic respect expected not just in the workplace, but in every area of life. Recognize and respect that other team members are people, and that everyone will make mistakes. Make sure to keep in mind others’ successes even against their failures. In most teams, there will be an ebb and flow of intense work, and it is important that everyone keeps respect at the forefront of their thoughts in a stressful work period.

And, if there ever is a team member who you feel is not completing their tasks, it is a disservice to ignore them. If such a problem is ignored, then the issue will never be resolved. For whomever it is appropriate to do so, honestly address any problem with the other team member. Take care to understand why they are struggling. Would this team member be better off in another area of the project? Or do they simply need a weekly check-in if they have questions about their work? Additionally, a team member perceived to not be pulling their own weight may not realize they have a slow work output. If they are made aware of the problem, then they have the opportunity to work to improve it. Such team members should be given a chance to express what is holding them back or any confusion they may have, as well as a fair opportunity to alter course and improve their workflow. However, if the issue persists with no notable improvement, further discussion, fine-tuning, and even discipline may become necessary.

Team building is critical to achieve full group understanding for those engaged in the workshop. By keeping in mind effective forms of communication and collaboration, teams can strengthen their results and better address client needs.

Learning to apply a growth mindset within the realm of professional and workplace development is another step in determining a positive outcome for this program. Better yet is learning the practices needed to maintain a growth mindset. This method of thinking not only benefits employees on a personal level, including increasing self-esteem and confidence, but additionally benefits the organization by creating a workforce that knows how to maintain a genuine belief in the team’s capabilities. When employees believe that success is outside of their control, this impacts company outcome and environment negatively. It can reduce morale and lead to less effectiveness and productivity. For the company to thrive, the employees must thrive, and that means keeping them confident, empowered, and heard.

By instead shifting team members to have a growth mindset and an internal locus of control, there will be increased confidence and morale. When people believe that they and their team can have an impact on positive outcomes, they are more motivated to produce quality work, work effectively within time constraints, and feel better about their work outcomes. Even in the face of a setback, people with a growth mindset can maintain the thought process that tells them they still have control, and can continue working towards their desired outcome. This benefits the company overall by giving the company, as a group of individuals, a sense of control over its path forward. Feeling more in control translates to a feeling of empowerment, which in turn leads to the positive results you want in your company.

This program will strengthen your team’s understanding of the client journey through a focus on both thought processes and engaging business practices. This combination of a tried-and-tested foundational approach with human-centered growth is a powerful way to improve your ability to interact with and engage client s. This is because the workplace is a dynamic environment, and incorporating multiple perspectives and methodologies allows for a more responsive approach to client needs. There is no better way to develop the team and workforce needed to create the success you want to see.

In order to be a high performer, you need to embrace a growth mindset to develop power skills and leadership habits. This requires overcoming your complacence, fears, and self-limiting beliefs. It’s an iterative journey, with each step improving your professional development.

The mindset, power skills, and habits for thriving PERFORMANCE are:

Problem solving
Engagement
Resilience
Flexibility
Originality
Resourceful
Magnate
Agility
Negotiation
Collaboration
Exchange Information

P = Problem solving:

Confidence to use knowledge, facts, and data to see gaps and solve problems. Ability to share ideas and concepts with team and management. Open door to brainstorm, seek opportunities, and think outside the challenge.

Problem solving sets you apart by demonstrating your commitment, composure, and ingenuity. When an obstacle or challenge emerges, the common responses are fight, flight, or freeze. Problem solvers respond with finesse. They focus on the ways and means to move through, over, or around the difficulty.

Our clients, peers, friends, and family are attuned to our emotional psyche. They are calmed and reassured when we maintain our poise and assurance when things go sideways. This equanimity is vital for everyone around us. It manifests as confidence to use knowledge, share ideas, and seek opportunities to solve problems.

Practice the mitigation technique of running through scenarios on the project, initiative, or objective. You can do this with friends, at home with your family, and at work with your team members.

This method examines the worst thing that could happen, the best thing, and what is most likely to happen.

What do you anticipate?

Where are there bottlenecks, potential missteps, or system failures?

How will you work around them?

By going through the scenarios, you are stretching your problem-solving muscles.

Another practical exercise is to create mind maps of various activities. Flex those problem-solving muscles by outlining dependences, identifying interconnectivity, and asking “why.” This process of thinking helps you visualize and explore various ideas.

Mind maps are an excellent tool to break down barriers and see the other sides of a prism.

During a coffee clutch with your team, you can make this into a game or a puzzle to be solved. Encouraging your peers to creatively test alternate options establishes ingenuity to rapidly evaluate a situation, available fixes, and ramifications of each avenue. Together, you are retraining your brains to look at all the moving parts and the possibilities.

By definition, encountering a problem is disrupting. This could cause you to spend energy finding fault or worrying about possible follow-up issues instead of solutions. Captain Jack Sparrow had a great line you can lean into: “The problem isn’t the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem!”

E = Engagement:

Positivity and relatability to form deeper and fuller engagement with team, peers, and management. Bond of empathy by being genuine and demonstrating acceptance of alternate perspectives.

R = Resilience:

Strength to bounce back from set-backs, obstacles, difficulties, and failures. Confidence in ability to prevail and handle stress positively.

Resilience provides a frame in which we view the current situation as a challenge we will get through. It gives us the ability to balance fear with rational and productive outcomes, helping us emotionally cope with anxiety. Resilience is a cultivated skill.

One exercise we use to learn or expand resilience is mind mapping.

Map how you would respond to a worst-case scenario.

How could you mitigate the situation, work through the challenge, or get past it?

Essentially, you are identifying and processing your fears, then visualizing the tools and means to navigate a crisis.

At work, an excellent way to learn resilience is to perform a review on a failed initiative or a situation that went poorly. Examine what could have been done differently and where improvements can be applied in the future. And most important, seek the reasons the failure was a success.

What insights did you gain?

What benefits did you realize?

What was the good that emerged from the experience?

F = Flexibility:

Capability to learn, unlearn, and relearn. This is a must with the fast pace of new and emerging changes in job requirements, organizational pivots, industry trends, and technology.

O = Originality:

Courage to ask “why”, imagine new possibilities, and develop new opportunities and solutions.

R = Resourceful:

Embrace technology to keep pace with emerging fast-paced changes and the future of work.

M = Magnate:

Demonstrate empowered leadership and motivation to explore potential areas of growth and interest.

A = Agility:

Capacity to pivot and change direction according to needs of team, department, organization, market, or industry. This includes being responsive to altered circumstances according to the needs of our family, workplace, and community.

More than anything, we can use agility to teach ourselves that we can make a new choice. We are not tied to a decision when new facts are presented or different details revealed. Agility is unique because of its truly empowering character.

It enables us to bridge gaps, find common ground, and blaze a fresh trail. When a product or service is not performing as needed at work, ask why and examine the dilemma from multiple aspects to grasp the full picture. Then take corrective action with the insight gained.

Agility helps us think creatively to respond to ever-changing requirements. More than that, it helps us seek the opportunities that arise from difficulties. Consider when you were learning to ride a bike. When you fell over, you don’t think of the “failure,” you focused on what you learned. Then you tried something different. Soon you are riding the bike like a pro.

Agility is the muscle we exercise to try again in a new way. When we embrace that change is a part of life, we consciously help ourselves learn how to be agile. Agility enables us to be curious, engage in positive learning, and solve problems.

N = Negotiation:

Capability to find common ground with team, internal clients, external partners, and management to reach mutually beneficial goals.

C = Collaboration:

Ability to work effectively with team and managers to drive outcomes. Do this by sharing knowledge, contributing ideas, proactively considering alternate perspectives, flexibility to work with diverse styles, and building mutually beneficial relationships with team, peers, and management.

E = Exchange Information:

Clear, concise, and positive communication is a cornerstone of organizational success. Requiring confidence to present and share concepts succinctly while radiating interest in other view-points.

By working through each of these mindsets and skills, your team will be able to address the areas of improvement needed. This will allow for a thorough mapping of the client journey. Many of these skills tie into our psychological approach to development, especially in the areas of teamwork and growth mindset.

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Project Studies

Part 1 – Process Mapping

Utilizing the SAMI client journey mapping framework presented during the workshop you will identify, analyze, and map niche activities. This project study should be taken back to individual departments to document distinct activities in the client journey that uniquely reside in their sphere.

Mapping niche activities is an important piece of the client journey. By going into further detail to capture niche activities helps you maximize client success. Remember to retain your focus to think like your clients. This includes understanding how they behave, what they want, how it will benefit them, and what it will enable them to do. This is an important part of mapping the client experience which delivers significant benefits for your business.

Together with your team, you will identify the niche activities within your client journey. These activities include the spark, target ICA (Ideal Client Avatar), qualifying lead, client “why”, communication, delivering value, outreach, presentations, follow-up, negotiation, close, transition, account team, client care, ongoing business, QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) and expansion.

Spark

• How does your client connect with your company?
• What are these moments?
• Where do they occur?
• How does your client bridge their journey?

ICA (Ideal Client Avatar)

• Who is it you want to connect with your company?
• What is it you want your client to think about?
• What is it you want the client to do?
• When is the best time to connect with your client?
• Where will the client be looking for information about your product or service?

Qualifying Lead

• What client characteristics matter to your business?
• Industry? Revenue? Size? Location?
• What are the three primary client roles that you sell into?
• What are their primary responsibilities?
• What goals does your client have?
• What are the client motivations?

Client “Why”

• What does your client want, need, or lack?
• What’s in it for the client?
• What is the client’s desired outcome?
• How does your client perceive the benefit?

Communication

• How does your client communicate with your company?
• Where do communications occur in the client journey?
• Who manages these moments?
• How do your internal teams bridge communications for the client journey?

Deliver Value

• How does your client receive value from your company?
• Where do you deliver value in the client journey?
• Who manages the value delivery process?
• How do you develop, plan, and execute value delivery in the client journey?

Outreach

• Which methods of outreach do you utilize in the client journey?
• What are the triggers you use to execute outreach efforts?
• How do our teams coordinate outreach in the client journey?
• Who manages the outreach methods?

Presentations

• How does your client interact with presentations from your company?
• What are the components of your presentations?
• Who is responsible for crafting the presentations?
• Who is involved with the client presentation management?

Follow-up

• How does your company follow-up with the client on their journey?
• What are the follow-up formats you use?
• Where do follow-ups occur in the client journey?
• Who is responsible for crafting, managing, and executing the follow-ups in the client journey?

Negotiation

• Where does your negotiation process intersect with the client journey?
• Who from your company interacts with the client at this stage of the journey?
• How do you coordinate between departments and the client during the negotiation?
• Who is ultimately responsible for the final negotiations deal points?

Close

• Where in the client journey do you begin closing the client?
• What closing methods do you utilize in the client journey?
• What are the loops you encounter within the client journey to close?
• How does your client interact with your company at this stage?

Transition

• How does your company transition the client from sales to an account team?
• How does this transition impact the client journey?
• What are the various points of transition within the client journey?

Account Team

• How does your company account team connect with the client on their journey?
• What methods are used by your account team to support the client journey?
• Where does the account team interact with the client on their journey?
• How does your account team coordinate with other departments to support the client?

Client Care

• Where does your client care team play an active role in the custom journey?
• What are these touchpoints and how are they performed?
• How does your client care team coordinate with other departments to support the client?

Ongoing Business

• How does your company support the client with on-going business?
• What are these touchpoints and how are they performed?
• How do you coordinate the ongoing business between your departments in the client journey?

QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews)

• Where do you perform QBRs in the client journey?
• How does your client interact with the QBRs from your company?
What are the components of your QBRs?
• Who is responsible for crafting, managing, and executing the QBRs in the client journey?

Expansion

• How do you incorporate client account penetration into the client journey?
• What are the methods used to expand your business with the client?
• How do you coordinate between departments to support expansion in the client journey?

Once you have completed your niche activities for your client journey, you are ready to determine the resources you have and the ones you’ll need. Take inventory of the resources that go into creating the client experience. Identify what you have in place and is working well. Then evaluate which areas you’ll need to refine and improve for the best client journey.

After designing your niche activity map you will need to analyze the results. Ask how you can better support your clients. Analyzing the results can show you where client needs are being unmet. By approaching this, you can ensure that you are providing a valuable client experience.

Your niche activity analysis should give you a sense of the changes necessary to achieve your client experience goals. Rather than blindly making changes in the hopes that they will improve the client journey, you will have confidence in your path forward. This process enables you to accurately predict how the modifications will impact your business and drive client value. And, it makes it much easier to convince leadership to invest in your proposals.

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Part 2 – Process Analysis

Utilizing the SAMI client journey mapping framework presented during the workshop you will identify, analyze, and map niche methodologies. This project study should be taken back to individual departments to document distinct methodologies in the client journey that uniquely reside in their sphere.

Mapping niche methodologies is an important piece of the client journey. By going into further detail to capture niche methodologies helps you maximize client success. Remember to retain your focus to think like your clients. This includes understanding how they behave, what they want, how it will benefit them, and what it will enable them to do. This is an important part of mapping the client experience which delivers significant benefits for your business.

Together with your team, you will identify the niche methodologies within your client journey. These methodologies are to identify touchpoints, pinpoint areas of friction, classify the client “why,” look for gaps, reveal pain points, and seek areas of excellence.

Identifying Touchpoints

• Where does the client interact with your company?
• How do they relate to their sales representative?
• Is there a physical location connection?
• How do they find your website?
• Does your client reach out to your customer service line?
• Are they engaging in your social channels?
• Are you meeting them at events?

Our focus is to identify and document all of the touchpoints where clients experience your business. While many of these touchpoints you are probably already aware of, there are also likely some touchpoints that are less obvious or overlooked. Knowing all of the touchpoints within the client journey is imperative, because each one can reveal different areas of friction, openings and gaps, pain points, or areas of excellence. They can also each reveal or speak to specific facets of the client why. Missing even one touchpoint can mean missing a significant piece of the puzzle, and it can result in unanswered questions with no way to solve. Asking the above questions will help uncover and fully understand each touchpoint.

Pinpointing Areas of Friction

• What are known areas of friction in your client journey?
• What does your client see during their interactions?
• What do they experience with every interaction on their client journey?
• What behind the scenes activities impact the client?
• Are there internal processes that cause friction on the client journey?
• What areas of the journey may your client feel negative emotions?

Using the SAMI framework with representatives from across your business, we will uncover areas of friction. Knowing all the areas of friction is critical, because these are the areas that most need your attention. Areas of friction can result in a client leaving you, an outcome you never want. To reduce that risk, we must uncover and understand each area of friction, then use that knowledge to fix it. How can we eliminate or at least minimize these areas of friction? How can we smooth them over to instead become areas of excellence?

Classifying the Client “Why”

• What behaviors does your client exhibit in the client journey?
• Where are their motivations revealed and what are the motivations?
• How do the clients’ emotions present themselves during the client journey?
• What common patterns manifest during the client journey?

Our goal is to humanize the client and better understand their perspective during the client journey mapping process. Understanding their Client Why is necessary, because it leads to your ability to address their need, want, or lack. It enables you to answer their questions, address their concerns, and provide a solution to their problem.

Looking for Opening and Gaps

• What gaps exist between client expectations and client perceptions?
• Are there commonalities in these client journey gaps?
• What are the client expectations and how can they be met?
• How is the client perspective impacting their client journey progress?
• What about internally between departments?
• How and why are these impacting the client journey?
• Are there processes which negatively affect the client experience?

These are opportunities within the client journey mapping process you can immediately address. We will evaluate which gaps have priority based on the key moments in the client journey which can make or break the client experience.

Revealing Pain Points

• What pain points are you aware of in the client journey?
• Do specific departments have insights into pain points which are not common knowledge?
• Are there too many steps in a particular process in the client journey?
• What barriers must the client go around or through during their journey?
• Is your response time creating a negative client experience?
• What resources will be required to address the pain points in the client journey?
• Which pain points need to be prioritized?

Seeking Areas of Excellence

• What processes work smoothly and consistently in the client journey?
• Where and how does your organization exceed client expectations?
• What actions do the clients value and appreciate?
• How can these areas of excellence be repurposed for other aspects of your business?

Once you have completed your niche methodologies for your client journey, you are ready to determine the resources you have and the ones you’ll need. Take inventory of the resources that go into creating the client experience. Identify what you have in place and is working well. Then evaluate which areas you’ll need to refine and improve for the best client journey.

After designing your niche methodology map you will need to analyze the results. Ask how you can better support your clients. Analyzing the results can show you where client needs are being unmet. By approaching this, you can ensure that you are providing a valuable client experience.

Your niche methodology analysis should give you a sense of the changes necessary to achieve your client experience goals. Rather than blindly making changes in the hopes that they will improve the client journey, you will have confidence in your path forward. This process enables you to accurately predict how the modifications will impact your business and drive client value. And, it makes it much easier to convince leadership to invest in your proposals.

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Part 3 – Project Re-design

Utilizing the SAMI client journey mapping framework presented during the workshop you will identify, analyze, and map niche influences. This project study should be taken back to individual departments to document distinct influences in the client journey that uniquely reside in their sphere.

Mapping niche influences is an important piece of the client journey. By going into further detail to capture niche influences helps you maximize client success. Remember to retain your focus to think like your clients. This includes understanding how they behave, what they want, how it will benefit them, and what it will enable them to do. This is an important part of mapping the client experience which delivers significant benefits for your business.

Together with your team, you will identify the niche influences within your client journey. These influences are relationship assets, review market or industry reputation, evaluate networking effects, and assess resources, knowledge, skills, and experience. These are the influences that directly impact your client journey.

Determining Existing Relationship Assets

• What existing connections between individuals influence the client journey?
• What existing connections between organizations influence the client journey?
• How do warm referrals impact the client journey?
• How do shared relationships influence the client journey?

This is an opportunity for all the participating team members to perform a brain dump. Encourage all team members to share their ideas and insights. Diverse and unique perspectives are valuable, as they can uncover hidden and less obvious connections that prove instrumental in improving relationships. Comprehensively and uncritically expressing and recording every possible relationship that may exist with clients is crucial. Consider all the relationships within your organization, both internally and with external clients, partners, and more. From here, we will identify areas to improve upon, as well as the areas of excellence from which to learn.

Reviewing Market or Industry Reputation

• How do you showcase your culture to influence the client journey?
• Where do you share your values to influence the client journey?
• What are you doing as an organization to minimize carelessness in your social media?
• Do you have bad reviews on the internet?
• Do you have recurring quality or delivery issues?
• Have your client survey results indicated a common negative client experience?
• Are there pockets of weak professional ethics within your organization that are impacting the client journey?

There are so many ways your reputation, which you spent years building, can be destroyed in five minutes. We need to get comfortable with this uncomfortable topic to identify and mitigate challenges to your reputation. Think honestly and critically about the above probing questions, as well as other areas in which your reputation may be suffering. From there, we will work on mitigating the issues and improving your reputation, putting your business in a better position for success. Reputation is among the first things prospects and potential clients will know about your business, and you want to ensure it is a good first impression, not one that turns them off from you.

Evaluating Network Effects

• What are the network effects within the client journey?
• What are the impressions from your PR?
• How does the social chatter around your company influence the client journey?
• Which events directly impact the client journey?

Together we will brainstorm all of the network effects that influence your client’s experience with your organization. As with reputation above, knowing your network effects is imperative in better controlling your company’s narrative and putting your best self forward. How can your company’s output and messaging improve? How can you gracefully redirect talk around your company towards more positive messaging? This goes hand in hand with reputation, and the two can influence each other.

Assessing the ESK (Experience, Skills, Knowledge)

• What is the level of experience across your organization?
• What does the experience breakdown look like across departments and roles?
• How does this experience translate to the client journey map?
• How does the client learn of your experience prowess?
• How does your organizational experience influence the client?
• What skills are highly refined with your company?
• What do the skills look like across departments and roles?
• How does your organizational skill set translate to the client journey map?
• How does the client learn of your advanced skills?
• How do your organizational skills influence the client?
• What is the knowledge obtained across your organization?
• What does the knowledge level look like across departments and roles?
• How does your company’s knowledge translate to the client journey map?
• How does the client learn of your knowledge?
• How does your knowledge influence the client?

Once you have completed your niche influences for your client journey, you are ready to determine the resources you have and the ones you’ll need. Take inventory of the resources that go into creating the client experience. Identify what you have in place and is working well. Then evaluate which areas you’ll need to refine and improve for the best client journey.

After designing your niche influences map you will need to analyze the results. Ask how you can better support your clients. Analyzing the results can show you where client needs are being unmet. By approaching this, you can ensure that you are providing a valuable client experience.

Your niche influences analysis should give you a sense of the changes necessary to achieve your client experience goals. Rather than blindly making changes in the hopes that they will improve the client journey, you will have confidence in your path forward. This process enables you to accurately predict how the modifications will impact your business and drive client value. And, it makes it much easier to convince leadership to invest in your proposals.

At this stage you are ready to bring the niche activities, methodologies, and influences together. Bring all the program participants together to review your findings. Update your client journey map to ensure you capture your learnings. Your client journey map will continuously evolve. Reviewing it monthly or quarterly will help your team identify gaps and opportunities to improve the client experience. It’s also an important tool for analyzing new products or services that may alter the client journey.

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Part 4 – Process Resources

An important project study exercise is for you to develop additional buyer personas. You may find it useful to gather feedback in the form of surveys or questionnaires. It’s vital to only reach out to actual clients or prospects. You are seeking input from people who are actually interested in purchasing your products or services, and those who have purchased from you before. The feedback you receive can fill in details of the additional buyer personas you create.

The next step in crafting additional buyer personas is to define their role, industry, goals, and motivations. Tapping into the sales team members’ knowledge will help you avoid assumptions and stereotyping. Utilize input from all team members so that the information you work with is nuanced and complete.

The following step to craft a robust buying persona is asking questions that clarify their connection to a specific problem, situation, product, or service. Identify the distinct problem, situation, product, or service for the buying persona. Then answer from the perspective of the buyer persona:

• What are their expectations of your product or service?
• What are they trying to accomplish?
• What is their purpose for using your product or service?
• What do they want, need, or lack?
• Are there specific pain points they are experiencing and trying to overcome?
• What questions do they need answered?
• What really matters to them?
• What does a typical day look like for them?
• What tasks do they need to accomplish?
• What channels of communication do they use or how do they communicate?
• How do they make decisions?
• Which people or situations influence their decision-making process?

Those questions are an excellent and broad stroke first step. However, for more specific and detailed answers, you will want to ask questions that fall into different categories: human behavior, the five senses, client emotions, client motivations, and recommendations. Asking the right questions will help you glean information that will prove critical in better understanding your clients and thus addressing their needs. This, in turn, will mean an improved opportunity to gain and retain the client, fostering a stronger relationship.

Human Behavior

• How can your thoughts about your work impact your actions?
• What choices can you make to positively impact your day?
• How do you respond to setbacks?
• How can your choices impact others in a positive way?
• What areas of this scenario can you control? What areas are out of your control?
• How can you best leverage the parts of the work that are within your control?

Remember that a part of your best strength in any situation is choosing a growth mindset. Put yourself in the buyer personas shoes and ask questions like those above, which allow you to reflect on your client’s environment. Even when you may think they are in a limited, difficult situation, by focusing on the areas you can improve, you can position your product or service as the best path forward.

Five Senses

• What will a client be visualizing when they think of the outcome of your work with them?
• How do daily scents impact your work experience?
• What would leave the client with a bad taste in their mouth, so to speak?
• What will a client want to hear from you at the end of your work?
• What would you want to hear from the client?
• How can you make sure to keep in touch with a client after a project is complete?

This one may seem weird, but if you ask the right questions, you can glean a lot from how a client responds about appeals to the five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Apply these basic components of everyday life to how you think about the client and project’s outcome.

Emotions

• What is important to you as a [job title]?
• What is the easiest part of your day?
• What is the hardest or most challenging part of your day?
• If you could eliminate one daily activity, what would it be?
• When working with other businesses, what has made that a positive experience for you?

As much as most people like to think that they make purchasing choices exclusively based on logic and objectivity, all of us are emotional buyers when it comes down to it. By asking a client about their emotions, you are getting a feel for what will sway them subconsciously. How can your solutions meet their emotions? How can you present your product or service to appeal to their emotional side? Answers to these questions will help.

Motivations

• Why might you choose to put in more work on a project?
• How can a team environment impact motivation?
• Does the way you think about your work impact your outcomes?
• Do you believe you can focus on positive aspects of an activity to be better motivated?
• How can long-term thinking improve your short-term motivation?
• Can you utilize connections in your workplace to strengthen your motivation during a project?

Asking questions about a client’s motivations (and hidden motivations) will prove crucial in identifying what they want, need, or lack, and it will enable you to address how your product or service meets those motivations. By speaking to their motivations, you are speaking to the side of them that wants a solution that they know will work for their needs.

Recommendations

Have you worked with / used [x company, product, or service]? How was that?

Would you recommend [x company, product, service, or person]? Why or why not?

You can also get valuable recommendations or endorsements by asking either direct or indirect questions about another company, person, product, or service.

This approach to crafting the additional buyer personas will prevent you from getting stuck in an inside-out perspective of the client journey (the “client-will-purchase-from-us” journey). You want an unbiased view from the buyer persona in regards to your products or services. This approach to crafting the buyer persona enables you to expand your client journey map. Use the questions above to get started, but also feel free to add questions of your own that better fit your company, product, or service, as well as the specific client you are talking to. This will prove valuable in the client experience and the client journey.

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Part 5 – Process Communications

We have a number of introspective exercises to facilitate your team’s embrace of a growth mindset. It’s not just personality, intelligence, or talent that influences success or failure; it’s also the way people view themselves and their abilities. Individuals with a growth mindset believe their abilities are changeable.

Our growth mindset exercises are designed to allow your team members to transition away from a fixed mindset and actively learn, stretch, and grow. The human potential is unknowable so making a commitment to constantly seek opportunities and develop their potential.

From accepting weakness and addressing it to accepting that failure says nothing about your personality, positions individuals to actively pursue the experience and skills they need. Your team members nurture a growth mindset when they tie success to effort and reframe failure as a learning opportunity.

Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset, explains the surprising power behind learning to alter self-limiting beliefs and build a growth mindset. We have included reading the highly regarded Mindset in your tasks.

Your team is to complete each of our exclusive growth mindset exercises designed to shift their paradigm, reframe their mindset, and shift their self-imposed limiting beliefs.

The growth mindset exercises include:

Accomplishments Worksheet

It’s important to shift your focus away from your perceived flaws and to your successes. Write out every accomplishment you can think of. Your accomplishments don’t have to have been recognized by an institution, like a university or a company. You can – and should – list things you might even consider silly or trivial; things like completing difficult video games count.

You can also categorize accomplishments. Academic, career, personal, interpersonal… whichever categories make sense to you and apply to your life.

Automatic Thoughts Log

Observe automatic thoughts for 5 days, including positive or negative ones. Examples of automatic thoughts could be “Everyone thinks my sales technique is too pushy,” or “Everyone else but me is an expert at closing.” Write down balanced thoughts as well. An example of a balanced thought could be “I did really well during that presentation, but I could have articulated this particular point in a better way.”

Constructive Criticism Worksheet

Receiving constructive criticism can feel like a personal attack, but it’s really a sign of admiration and respect! Use this worksheet to process constructive criticism the next time you receive it.

First, write down the situation – what was being criticized?

While constructive criticism demonstrates that the critic sees your potential, your feelings don’t always reflect this. That’s okay! Take this time to express your emotions and then reflect on the criticism. Can you see the critic’s point? Are there any points you don’t understand or don’t agree with?

Now, if there are any points you’d like to clarify, this is the time to ask. Write down some questions you can ask the critic about their feedback. We’ve provided a few to get you started.

1) Can you tell me more about what you mean by XYZ?
2) Where can I learn more about this?
3) What have I done right that I should continue?

Asking questions can make you more prepared to make the suggested improvements. It can also boost your confidence by highlighting what you did well and learning why your critic thinks certain things. How did the conversation go?

By going through this exercise each time you receive difficult feedback, you can train your brain to view constructive criticism as an exciting opportunity for discussion and idea exchange.

Reframing Flaws Worksheet

We all have perceived “flaws,” from being sloppy to getting caught up in the details, but the truth about flaws is that they’re not all bad. Sure, they might take some work, but finding ways to manage your “flaws” can help build your problem-solving skills and learn new things – about yourself and your sales process.

Even better, you don’t have to accept that a flaw is just a flaw. The things you think are flaws probably help you in some ways because every flaw has its flip side. Every coin has heads and tails, and you just have to flip it around to see the benefit this characteristic holds for you. For example, maybe you’re really shy… but you’re also an excellent listener. Look for the good in every bad, and consider how these flaws are actually strengths.

In the exercise, list any flaws you think you have. Next, think of ways you can manage those flaws or make them less of a hindrance. Finally, look for the good – find your flaw’s flip-side. By taking a closer look at the things you perceive as flaws, you’ll likely find some handy skills and impressive strengths! Insider tip: you can ask a friend if you need help to get you started.

Strengths & Opportunities Worksheet

Referencing the Accomplishments worksheet, identify the strength(s) each accomplishment highlights in you. For example, if you completed a challenging video game, that probably took perseverance and problem solving.

Don’t be shy or humble during this process!

As you list each strength, you should also think about how it could help you with your current sales or process. This will hopefully help you feel more prepared to tackle it and feel confident doing so.

Now that we’ve found your strengths, let’s look at your opportunities. A really positive way to start your list of opportunities is by referring back to your list of accomplishments. So, look at your list of accomplishments to find gaps in your strengths and skill set. Of course, you can also identify gaps by looking at mistakes and setbacks if you’re feeling up to it.

Don’t think of these gaps as permanent flaws in you: These gaps are actually opportunities for you to gain new skills and strengths. Write down how you can learn those new skills and gain those strengths. That’s your method of growth.

Managing Emotions Worksheet

Emotions are instrumental in affecting how we feel and behave in various situations. It’s important to recognize and acknowledge those emotions – it will help you to better understand yourself, and it will help you in responding to and managing those emotions. Use this worksheet to get in touch with your feelings so you can gain better control over them.

Think about a recent situation where your emotions ran high. Write about how you were feeling. Note any anxieties, physical feelings, and positive feelings.

Now reflect on your emotions. Note whether you spoke up and why. How did your emotions reflect your feelings?

Now that you understand your emotions, you’re ready to accept yourself. Take the time to evaluate how you can learn from the experience, how to take the positive from the situation, and how to feel good about it.

Identifying What’s Holding You Back Worksheet

The first step to solving any problem is understanding it. In order to overcome your fear associated with limiting beliefs, you must first identify why you’re afraid. What about the limiting belief makes you nervous? What are the outcomes you are scared might happen? Fill out this worksheet to better understand your fears so that you can kick them to the curb.

What do you think is holding you back?

• Fear of looking stupid.
• Fear of forgetting what you meant to say.
• Fear of being inarticulate.
• Fear of spectacular failure.
• Fear of losing your job.
• Fear of creating conflict.
• Fear of questions you cannot answer.
• Fear of being an impostor.
• Fear of rejection.
• Fear of being mocked or ridiculed.
• Fear of physical symptoms (shaking, heightened color, dry mouth).
• Fear of being ignored or that nobody is listening.

You’ve identified what about the limiting belief scares you. Why do you think you feel this way? Where do you think this fear comes from?

Based on the training session, how can you combat your fear(s)?
List three methods that you think will work for you:

Now that you better understand your fears, you will be prepared to take action and overcome your limiting beliefs.

Affirmations Worksheet

Practicing affirmations is a great way to remind yourself of your strengths and help you gain a positive perspective on your accomplishments and areas of potential growth. Practice them out loud as soon as you wake up each day. Here are 7 daily affirmations to get you started.

Be Sure to Create Your Own!

Monday – “The things I view as flaws in myself are actually hidden strengths, and I am capable of finding them.”

Tuesday – “Everything I have accomplished is because I worked hard to make them happen. I have full ownership of my success.”

Wednesday – “I have strengths and skills to draw upon at work and in life.”

Thursday – “My friends and co-workers see my potential, and they want to help me fulfill it.”

Friday – “I can take inspiration from other people’s success.”

Saturday – “Learning new skills is exciting and empowering, and I am capable of learning.”

Sunday – “I accomplish something important every day, even if I don’t always see it.”

Write down your own affirmations you’d like to put into practice.

Value Vault Workbook

A Value Vault is a compendium of your unique talents and experience. It serves you on multiple levels. It is an effective tool to formulate new beliefs and retrain your brain. Your Value Vault grows and evolves with you. You will add to it throughout your career. It’s available for you to tap into whenever you need a boost to your assurance and confidence. You have immediate access to your Value Vault to easily leverage, creating favorable outcomes.

A Value Vault is stuffed full of your accomplishments, skills, and unique talents. As you acquire new experience, you will add it to your vault. It’s a living, growing resource for you to tap. You can open and retrieve the expertise and techniques you need when presented with challenges or obstacles.

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Create Your Value Vault

Step 1: Review

Review the worksheets you completed following session 1 of your Up-level Sales training.

• Accomplishments
• Automatic Thoughts Log
• Constructive Criticism
• Reframing Flaws
• Strengths & Opportunities

Step 2: Pull Forward

Pull your accomplishments, positive patterns, reframed abilities, and strengths forward. Pivot your know-how to clarify your proficiency. You want to be detailed. Dig deep to set yourself apart and showcase your unique abilities.

Step 3: Motivations

Determine how each aptitude motivates you. Note: it’s normal to be lacklustre about, or bored by, some of your skills. The purpose is to identify those areas which are rewarding and satisfying.

Step 4: Emotions

Next ascertain your feelings about each skill. Ask yourself why you feel specific emotions about each talent. Then consider how the knack connects you to your core values, or what truly makes you tick.

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Exercise – Your Value Vault

This is a testament to who you are and the value you bring to your relationships and organization. List your talents, motivations, and emotions.

Tap Your Vault

Now that you have filled your Value Vault, you can open it and access when it’s needed. Perhaps you are feeling self-doubt, or questioning your ability, to resolve a snag or leap over a hurdle. This is where your Value Vault fills the void. You have successfully surmounted the same or similar situations. Reviewing your Value Vault reminds you of your ingenuity, fortifying your assurance and confidence to attain a favorable outcome.

These four simple steps will help tap into your Value Vault and you overcome these bumps in the road.

YASS!

Y – WHY You

• Remember that you are an expert and you add value.

A – Allowed to Fail

• Give yourself permission to fail. When you fall, you always get back up.

S – See Success

• Breathe and reframe your mindset.

S – Surge Forward

• Take a leap of faith, you’ve got this.

Use Your Vault

Determine the talents that best support your new beliefs and intentions. Create a physical Value Vault to carry in your pocket or purse. It is a constant reminder of your extensive clout. A 3×5 card works great. Remember to update the card from time to time as you grow and evolve. Keep your Value Vault current to deliberately bolster your confidence.

Our goal is to help your team perform a blame free analysis and to ask themselves questions and tease out the deeper causes of their behavior. It is a fact-finding mission, to identify patterns, and observe where your team has felt blocked.

These growth mindset exercises for introspection deliver powerful and proven advantages to your team. They help us open our prism to account for logic and emotions during the client journey. People making business decisions and purchases experience emotions during the process. Feelings of anxiety or double are normal human experiences. By accounting for your clients’ logic and emotions in your client journey maps we are able to develop an accurate portrayal of their experience.

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Part 6 – Process Review

Team Building

In order to be a high performer, you need to reboot your mind to develop power skills and leadership habits. This requires overcoming your complacence, fears, and self-limiting beliefs. It’s an iterative journey, with each step improving your professional development.

In this project study your team members will listen to a podcast series on PERFORMANCE power skills. This series will help your team grow their mindset, develop power skills, and acquire habits for thriving.

KPIs

The other area of project study for process review is establishing a plan for KPIs. It is important to understand that depending on the phase of the client journey you need to pay attention to different KPIs. KPIs include performance indicators that your team can interpret to plan ahead for the year. KPIs allow leaders to take a step back and see how the company is performing in comparison to the goals they have set.

KPIs help team members, managers and leaders track progress to targets, identify high-level trends and themes, and manage individual and team performance. KPIs are the key metrics you use to measure performance. Below are a list of possible KPIs you may want to monitor.

Awareness Phase:

Since at this stage of the client journey the potential client becomes aware of the problem and starts researching more information about the topic, KPIs are important to track.

KPIs at the Awareness Phase:

• Opportunities by lead source
• First response time
• Number of accounts contacted
• Number of accounts engaged
• Email open and click rate
• Email open to reply ratio
• Call to appointments ratio
• Impressions
• Reach
• Video views
• Cost per 1 thousand impressions (CPM)
• SEO ranking

Consideration Phase:

Content marketing plays a significant role in this phase. Therefore, here blog posts, videos, email marketing, and other content come into play. It is crucial to understand that depending on the product complexity the consideration stage may imply multiple engagements.

At this point, KPIs that are reflecting engagement are the most important.

KPIs at the Consideration Phase:

• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) to Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
• Conversion Rate
• Sales eligible lead delivery
• Cost per Lead (CPL)
• Clicks
• Click-through-rate (CTR)
• Engagement Rate
• Cost-per-click (CPC)

Decision Phase:

KPIs at this stage reflect how effectively you close your clients. Your win/loss ratio. It is important to mention that you should track not only the number of leads and conversion rate but also the average Cost per Lead and Cost per Conversion. It will help you to estimate how much money you spend on one lead/conversion.

KPIs at the Decision Phase:

• Sales from new business ventures
• New business win rate
• Sales by product
• Sales by Region
• Win/Loss Ratio
• Monthly Sales Growth
• Sales Cycle Length
• Average revenue per account
• Expansion dollars
• Net expansion revenue
• Contraction dollars
• Churn dollars
• Gross client churn
• Net new revenue attainment
• Individual quota attainment
• Revenue sold per rep
• Conversion Rate
• Cost per Conversion

Champion Phase:

At this phase, companies need to do everything to make their clients happy. Therefore, to measure the effectiveness of your champion strategy the following number of KPIs needs to be monitored.

KPIs at the Champion Phase:

• Client Loyalty
• Client Satisfaction
• NetPromoterScore (NPS)
• Feedbacks
• Issue requests
• Orders Canceled With a Reason
• Client Lifetime Value (CLV)
• Referrals
• KPIs That Can Help Set Personal Goals for Employees

The value of having the right sales KPIs can’t be understated. For ambitious companies, monitoring the right metrics is the difference between driving scalable growth and seeing your revenue flatline. They become meaningful when you dig deeper, start looking for underlying trends and themes, and use those insights to take the next step toward faster growth.

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Program Benefits