IGNITE SELLING 2019 PROGRAM CATALOG · IGNITE SELLING . 2019 PROGRAM CATALOG. ... • Influencer Snapshot • Situational Snapshot • Competitive Snapshot • Value Snapshot •

IGNITE SELLING 2019PROGRAM CATALOG

[email protected] 703-234-5275 www.igniteselling.com


IGNITE SELLING 2019 PROGRAM CATALOGAbout Ignite Selling

• Our Story• Representative Clients• Our Research• Why Us?

Our Approach• Learning Alignment• Sales Process Design• Custom Modular Design• Blended Learning• Simulation-based Sales Training

• Competitive Sales Simulations• Custom Sales Learning Maps

• Implementation

Sales Training Modules• Selling with Strategic Intent• Influencer Snapshot• Situational Snapshot• Competitive Snapshot• Value Snapshot• Enviromental Snapshot

Sales Coaching Programs• Strategic Sales Coaching• Tactical Sales Coaching• Coaching the Coaches

Application and Reinforcement• eLearning Modules• e-Tools and Video Role Plays• Measurement: Qstream

Use Cases• Sales Transformation• Sales Strategy Execution• Reactivating Sales Improvement Initiatives• New Hire Onboarding• New Product Launch• Aligning Sales, Marketing and Customer Success Teams• National Sales Meetings• Sales Process Re-engineering

Next Steps: Contact Us

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Learning Methods Page 9


Our StoryWe are a global sales performance improvement company enabling businesses to exceed their revenue goals by improving the critical on the job behaviors needed to execute the key sales strategies that will drive the business outcomes our clients are seeking. For over 20 years, we have channeled our experience in sales, sales coaching, and sales training in building custom designed programs for Fortune 1000 organizations that improve sales performance.

We bring our strategic sales consulting and learning alignment approach, in developing custom programs that are unique to our customers’ needs and enable them to achieve their business goals. Our programs use Interactive Learning Maps™ and Competitive Sales Simulations to give learners an engaging and relevant learning experience and prepare them for their real-world challenges.

Representative Clients

ABOUT IGNITE SELLING


We have trained over 10,000 salespeople in more than 20 countries and six languages across multiple industries such as Healthcare, Financial Services, IT Services and Professional Services. We have also published a book called Premeditated Selling, which continues to be hugely popular for all those in the business of selling.

Our solution includes a modular design that leverages a blended learning approach with elements such as Pre-and Post- eLearning activities, custom classroom modules using Interactive Learning Maps™ and Competitive Sales Simulations, and E-Tools to drive application and meet defined learning objectives.

Extensive Experience in Sales Performance

Improvement

Strategic Client Engagement Process

Innovative Blend of Sales Training

Modalities

ABOUT IGNITE SELLING

We follow a Strategic Learning Alignment process to ensure that the custom sales training program we build for you meets your specific sales and business goals. Each of our clients have a unique sales strategy to ensure they capture market share and grow revenues to suit their stakeholders. All our sales training are unique to each company and drive strategies that enable their sales reps to execute specific objectives.

Our Research

Why Us?


Your company’s business strategies are unique. How your sales team executes those strategies is distinct, hence your sales training program needs be exclusively designed for your company. We believe that off-the-shelf solutions that have been around for years do not address the challenges that today’s sales force encounters in the field every day.

Our approach is to work with our clients to custom design a sales training program that is focused on specific needs to drive the business outcomes you are seeking. Whatever your long-range goals – and your short-term problems —we help not only improve sales skills but more importantly, impact your business.

OUR APPROACH

Learning AlignmentThis unique client engagement process sets us apart from our competition. We start by understanding our client’s sales goals, the strategies that must be implemented to attain those goals, and the on-the-job behaviors that the team must be proficient in to execute those strategies. With this common understanding, we turn to the multiple learning modules to pick and choose modules that provide the skills your team needs to be more efficient on the job.

This Learning Alignment Process enables us to identify the leading indicators that are measured to ensure behavior change is taking place. It is through this process that we can assess the impact of our training and work with our clients to make necessary internal adjustments to ensure business results are being achieved.

We develop custom sales processes that help businesses thoroughly define each stage in their selling process, delineating them from one another, and clearly distinguishing their boundaries. The key task isidentifying the proper milestones within each stage that must be completed before moving on. These milestones help sales rep be more intentional in their selling efforts.

Sales Process Design


OUR APPROACHSimultaneously, this sales process becomes a great coaching tool for your sales managers. Sales managers can quickly assess which critical milestones have not been thoroughly completed and focus their coaching efforts to help their reps achieve that outcome.

No two companies have the same strategy to achieve their business outcomes. Therefore, no two Ignite Selling programs are ever alike. We take into consideration your company strategy, your market, your sales rep profile, and any previous training you may have implemented to help determine what your sales training program should look like.

We build a program using specific Ignite Selling modules that focus only on those skills needed to help you achieve your sales goals. Whether your team needs to learn new competencies, reinforce past training, or launch a new product, we custom design a program for your organization that will put your team to the test and inspires them to scale new peaks of success.

Custom Modular Design

We combine a variety of learning modalities to meet the needs of our target audience. We leverage our eLearning platform for pre- and post-work to introduce new concepts and to test proficiency and understanding. This enables us to maximize the use of classroom time for practice and application.

We also have a suite of responsive E-Tools, and Video Role Plays that can be customized to optimize your post-workshop reinforcement. Our E-Tools can integrate into your CRM so that you can assess and measure adoption. This beginning to end learning approach improves success through for pre-training preparation and post-training retention and reinforcement.

Blended Learning


OUR APPROACH

We have outstanding facilitators who deliver a learning experience that will last a lifetime.

Simulation-based Sales Training

Is your sales team no longer using the sales training you’ve implemented in the past? Don’t discard that sales training, consider reinforcing those skills and driving application of those skills through our Competitive Sales Simulations. Our competitive simulations are much more than a series of “role-plays” that provide a snapshot in time. Our Competitive Sales Simulations are a total immersive sales training experience designed and crafted specifically to replicate your marketplace and help your sales team apply the skills, knowledge, process and tools in an impactful way. Our Competitive Sales Simulations are used by our client to effectively train sales teams on new product launches, drive application of face-to-face selling skills, strategic opportunity planning, and negotiation skills.

Competitive Sales Simulations

Today’s sales reps learn by doing and sharing best practices. Therefore, we leverage what we call our Learning Map methodology. A learning map is a graphical approach that serves as a game board for learning. It contains models and activities that use multiple learning objects to engage the learner. We leverage these learning maps in all of our sales skills programs, such as opportunity strategy development, face-to-face selling skills, and coaching skills.

The auditory, visual and kinesthetic appeal enables the learners to remain engaged throughout the entire process, and research has proven that this learning drives better retention and application of the learning. There is no over dependency on PowerPoint presentations in these programs. In fact, in many of these programs we’ve eliminated PowerPoint altogether.

We get inexplicable joy to see the reaction of participants when they walk in the room and don’t see a projector and a screen at the front of the training venue. Instead, they see a game board, some cards, or some stickers. They know this is going to be a different kind of learning experience!

Custom Sales Learning Maps™


OUR APPROACHImplementationWhen it comes to implementing sales training, proper planning eliminates unpleasant surprises that can derail an initiative.

We understand the investment and commitment you are making in training your sales teams. As the leader, you are putting yourself under the microscope. It’s a great opportunity to upskill and fire-up your team so they leave with new confidence and energy. However, sometimes at overlooking small details can undermine you.

The good news is that we work with clients to implement projects every day. We will guide you through the process every step of the way by collaboratively creating a detailed implementation plan with you. From pre-work to program execution to measurement, we will identify the key project activities, roles and responsibilities, dates, milestones and budget. We will help you work through all of the logistical details in advance so there are no surprises.


LEARNING METHODSThere is a difference between “customizing” your training and “custom designing” your training. We believe both are necessary to achieve the best outcomes. Most sales training programs in the market are already entirely designed and merely need to be “customized.” We believe this approach leads to time spent in training on topics that are not necessary or relevant to the outcomes you are trying to achieve.

Ignite Selling believes in first, “custom designing” your sales training program. We believe in putting together only the learning modules you need to drive your outcomes. With the program “custom designed,” we will then “customize” the training to the realities of your sales team. Besides, our experience and research tell us that PowerPoint based classroom training and off-the-shelf sales training programs fail to engage adult learners. Programs that are engaging, interactive and custom designed to drive your outcomes showed improved learning results and had a greater impact on desired behavioral shifts.


SALES TRAINING MODULES

Most salespeople talk to prospects and customers daily which is core to their role. Most have the foundational skill set necessary to succeed on the job; however, the best salespeople are always working on sharpening their skills and continually challenge their thinking. Ultimately, every salesperson wants to figure out how to apply what they know in a more impactful and strategically relevant way. Without proper strategic direction, salespeople can become complacent and lose their edge.

Today’s complex selling environment requires salespeople to use their foundational skills over a broad spectrum of activities, such as identifying and altering the competitive landscape, understanding who are the key influencers in their account, executing a strategy to leverage advocates and turn adversaries, and deeply understanding the customers buying process.

Today, the challenge for every salesperson is less about what skills to use, and more about how to use the skills they have already. Our solution, Selling with Strategic Intent® helps the salesperson to move a client through a pre-defined sales process. By first knowing what needs to be accomplished, the salespeople will then learn how to apply foundational selling skills to achieve their goals.

Selling with Strategic Intent®

Key Benefits• Determine how to assess an opportunity, what stage it is in the sales process, and which critical milestones

need to be accomplished to move the opportunity forward• Learn how to use the sales process to determine Strategic Intent for a singular sales meeting• How to plan for and execute a meeting with a customer-focused purpose to ensure the customer understands

what’s in it for them• Get beyond a surface-level understanding of the situation to a common, in-depth understanding and ideas

about how to move forward• Align ideas in a way that helps the customer understand how your suggestions will help• Overcome resistance/objections from customers• Gain actionable commitments from customers


For many years now, selling strategically has been synonymous with filling out a form. Salespeople are taught to review and complete a strategic planning form to help them identify what they know or don’t know. We at Ignite Selling don’t believe effective strategies are formulated by completing a form. We believe to be effective at selling strategically salespeople must know how to think more critically, so we’ve built a set of tools that are designed to challenge the common assumption and encourage them to think about alternative strategies to obtain success.

Our tools enable your sales team to apply skills and knowledge they acquire to the real-world scenarios. We call our series of tools Snapshot Tools™ because we know that any given strategy is built on a snapshot in time. Once a strategy is implemented, or new information is discovered, the snapshot changes. Our Snapshot Tools™ not only make the sales process better, faster and cheaper, but it also helps salespeople think strategically and build a framework for deeper, meaningful interaction with their prospects and customers.

The Ignite Selling Snapshot Tools™ will challenge your salespeople’s common assumption throughout the different stages of your sales process. Each Snapshot Tool encourages sales and sales managers to take a more critical look at their most important opportunities.

Strategic Sales Snapshot Tools

The Snapshot Tools™ challenge your sales team to answer questions such as:• What has your strongest advocate done to help you minimize the impact of your greatest adversary?• Other than the fact they are using our product, what else has this influencer done to demonstrate they are our

advocate?

SALES TRAINING MODULES


SALES TRAINING MODULESInfluencer Snapshot®

What assumptions might your salespeople be making when it comes to effectively identifying and leveraging the key influencers in their accounts?

Do your salespeople know how to best leverage their real advocates in their accounts?

Do your salespeople know who their competition is speaking to that they’re not? What are they doing about it?

Influencer Snapshot® is a tool that will challenge your salespeople’s conventional thinking and common assumptions. The mapping process will give salespeople a reasonably clear and accurate picture of the key influencers and their importance in a decision-making process, then help them develop a proactive strategy to drive the sales opportunity in their favor.

Learning Objectives

With the Influencer Snapshot®, your salespeople will be able to:• Clearly articulate how to define an advocate and adversary, and delineate the level of influence held by key

individuals inside each prospective account.• Assess the individual influencers around specific opportunity and understand their role in the decision.• Develop appropriate strategies to leverage advocates and minimize the impact of adversaries.• Gain a competitive advantage by gaining insight into the neutral middle zone and learning to convert a

“neutral” into an advocate.

Process


SALES TRAINING MODULESSituational Snapshot®

Do your salespeople know the driving factors that can increase the sense of urgency in their prospect to act?

Are your salespeople able to identify influencers and create a consensus for a customer to act?

Are your salespeople able to articulate the complexity of the decision process and develop a plan to drive mutual value?

Situational Snapshot® is a tool that will help your salespeople understand the various critical factors affecting your customers’ purchase decisions. The mapping process gives salespeople a clear picture of five critical factors that help them understand complexities that they need to address to make a decisive sale, and recognize key factors involved in shortening the sales cycle.

Learning Objectives

With the Situational Snapshot®, your salespeople will be able to:• Assess a new opportunity in five areas: Urgency to Change, Length of the Decision Process, Complexity of the

Decision Process, Competitive Position, and Consensus about the Problem.• Analyze the complete situation and determine likelihood of succeeding and identify probable avenues for

improving chances of success.• Create a plan of action or strategy to make the changes necessary to improve chances of success.

Process


SALES TRAINING MODULESCompetitive Snapshot®

When there are multiple decision-makers and multiple decision criteria in an account, does your salesperson know whose decision criteria matters most and why?

Is your sales team able to influence or change the perception of a key influencers decision criteria and effectively align the value of their solutions?

Does your sales team know the decision criteria other than “price” that their customer is using to compare them to the competition?

The Competitive Snapshot™ is a tool that will help your salespeople understand their competitive position through an understanding of what decision criteria the customer will use to compare you to the competitive alternatives.

All buyers have a set of criteria they use in making smart buying decisions. Top performing salespeople understand their customer’s decision criteria, know their strengths and weaknesses against those criteria; and develop a strategy to capitalize on their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. This mapping process will make your sales team realize that “price” is NOT the only or most important criteria their customer is using to compare them against the competition.

Process

Learning Objectives

With Competitive Snapshot®, your salespeople will be able to:• Understand the important role that decision criteria play in a complex sale• Identify, assess, and stack rank the decision criteria for multiple Key Influencers inside a prospective

opportunity, and understand how they perceive their solutions• Create a visual perspective of Key Influencer’s decision criteria and to develop a strategy for addressing their

perception of what is important• Link the concept of Key Influencers and Decision Criteria to develop a strategy to enhance their position with

Advocates and change the perceptions of Adversaries


SALES TRAINING MODULESValue Snapshot®

Does your sales team understand how their customer will quantify the value of their solution?

What metrics have the sales team chosen to demonstrate their quantifiable value to their customer?

Can your salespeople articulate the most valuable business outcome for the customer once they have implemented their solution?

Value Snapshot™ is a tool that will help your salespeople analyze and quantify the value of your solution to help their customer make a smart buying decision. By using the classic value equation built in the tool, your sales team will be able to develop a strategy to create economic value, either through actual or conceptual benefits. The mapping process will make your sales team realize that value is positional and unique thereby equipping your sales team to position your solution efficiently.

Learning Objectives

With Value Snapshot®, your salespeople will be able to:• Quantify Value in a meaningful (and economic) way• Understand how the prospect currently quantifies or assesses the cost elements that go along with

implementing your company’s solutions• Take both Concrete (easily measured) and Abstract (hard to measure) Cost and Benefits and put them in terms

that allow for the completion or more measurable value assessment• Determine what must be done (either enhance benefits or reduce perception of costs) to improve the overall

value equation and increase the chance of winning


SALES TRAINING MODULESEnvironmental Snapshot®

What new strategies have your salespeople developed to leverage or combat the trends impacting their accounts?

Would your sales teams know what responsibility has been taken by stakeholders to help their company take advantage of or fight the trends in the market?

Does your sales team know which market trends are having the greatest impact on their prospects or customer and how it will affect their sales efforts?

Environmental Snapshot™ is a tool that will help your salespeople understand and analyze the trends in your customer’s industry and how they affect your customer, specifically the executives inside your customer’s organization.

The mapping process will give salespeople an ability to anticipate unique challenges and prepare themselves to address needs that the competitors may not have considered. The tool enhances their understanding of the market trends and the way it impacts the customers. More importantly, these insights provide support that salespeople can use in helping their customers make the right buying decision.

Learning Objectives

With the Environmental Snapshot®, your salespeople will be able to:• Identify major trends currently impacting the market• Analyze whether the trend significantly or insignificantly affects their customer• Determine if the specific trend will negatively or positively impact their customer decision process• Recognize who within your client organization is mostly affected by the major trends• Develop strategies to help your key influencers combat or leverage the significant trend


If you take the time to listen to the questions most sales managers ask their salespeople, you are likely to hear them ask a question that their salespeople probably already know the answer to. This type of coaching does NOT create value between the manager and the sales team. It merely “tests” the understanding of what the sales person knows or doesn’t know.

The Ignite Selling coaching solutions, both tactical sales coaching and strategic sales coaching, focus on the skill required for a manager to challenge the thinking of their sales team and to push them outside of their comfort zone to help them deliver the best results. We carefully work with sales managers to assess and build a plan of action to meet both tactical and strategic coaching goals. With the Ignite Selling 3D Questioning Model™, we teach sales managers to ask better questions that challenge common assumptions and formulate alternative actions the sales person had not thought about prior to meeting with their manager.

Strategic Sales CoachingThe biggest enemy of any sales manager is time – there simply isn’t enough of it. That’s why successful sales managers make the most of the time they have and focus on the things that matter most when it comes to driving success. Providing strategic coaching on the most critical sales opportunities is one area where sales managers can maximize the return on the time they invest. The challenges with strategy coaching are how to do it right, how to be consistent, and how to make the experience impactful for the salesperson being coached.

The Ignite Selling Strategic Coaching Workshop™ starts by identifying how to target the opportunities that can provide payback. Let’s face it, some opportunities are more important than others. If time is limited, then it is essential that a coach spends his/her time on those opportunities that matter most.

Once the right target opportunities are identified, then the goal is to develop a winning sales strategy. Using the strategy coaching best practices and the Ignite Selling Strategy Snapshot Tools™ as a guide, managers will learn how to have impactful conversations that assess salespeople’s understanding of the situation, challenge their thinking about the existing strategic plan, and help develop a strategic plan of action for moving forward. While effective strategy coaching can help develop the strategic thinking of the sales team, the primary objective of strategy coaching is to win the targeted opportunities.

The Strategic Coaching Workshop™ provides sales managers with the tools to be an effective coach for the entire lifecycle of an opportunity – from the time it enters the sales process to the time the deal is closed.

Learning Outcomes• Understand how strategy coaching can help and when it is appropriate• Develop the criteria for identifying high-potential target opportunities• Know and apply the Strategic Coaching Best Practices to assess the situation, challenge sales rep’s thinking, and

develop a new plan of action• How to use strategy coaching throughout each stage of the sales process

SALES COACHING PROGRAMS


Tactical Sales CoachingSales managers can do a lot to help the individual members of their team. Managers can play an active role in selling, helping move an opportunity through the sales process; managers can put out fires and deal with difficult customer situations; managers can sit down and help a salesperson develop a winning strategy for an opportunity; and managers can coach each individual member of their team on the specific selling skills he/she may need to develop to succeed.

While all the items described above are valid and valuable activities for a manager, there is no greater responsibility for a manager than the development of his/her people. A major element of a sales manager’s job is to help the individual members of his/her team succeed on their own. Since managers can’t attend every sales meeting with every salesperson, it’s critical that managers help salespeople develop the skills they need to execute sales meetings effectively when they are by themselves.

The Ignite Selling Coaching with Strategic Intent™ starts by reinforcing and validating the sales best practices taught in the Selling with Strategic Intent™ program. Program answers three main questions every manager should ask when developing a Coaching “Plan of Action”.

What skills are key to driving successful sales meeting outcomes? What does good look like? How do I choose which skills to focus on for each salesperson?

Do I need to coach every member of my sales team? Where do I start? Who gets priority?

1. What to Coach 2. How to Coach 3. Who to Coach

What skills do I as a coach need use to help change behaviors? What behaviors make for an effective coaching experience? How can I be a more effective coach?

Learning Outcomes• Know WHAT skills need to be coached• Be able to accurately assess the execution of those skills during a sales meeting• Know HOW to coach using coaching best practices (Applying those best practices in planning sessions and post-

sales meeting coaching efforts)• Know WHO to coach and how to prioritize the coaching efforts for maximum impact



Coaching the CoachesThe Ignite Selling Coach-the-Coaches solution, delivered in collaboration with United Sales Resources, addresses three important questions every sales leader should ask when considering a sales management development plan.

2. How are we doing it? How do we plan? What kinds of questions do we ask? What specific skills do our sales managers need to develop in order to become great coaches?

3. How do we measure success? What specific commitments do we want our salespeople to make based on our coaching?

1. What are we doing to create insight / value for our salespeople? What issues or opportunities are we helping them to discover in our coaching sessions?

The Ignite Selling Coach-the-Coaches solution integrates some of the most important aspects of sales coaching - planning and asking questions with strategic intent, listening, seeking and obtaining commitment, and advancing opportunities - into one practical and digestible process. We use your team’s sales opportunities as the context for our work together, and we help you win while your sales reps and your managers learn.


Important Outcomes

• Identify issues and opportunities with deal strategy and help managers to correct them.• Target the few, crucial improvements that will make a big impact on your reps’ results.• Maximize time and make the process of deal coaching simpler and more efficient to execute.• Establish a process of continual improvement that managers and reps buy into and enjoy.

Process


APPLICATION AND REINFORCEMENTeLearning ModulesWe offer a full curriculum of e-learning modules to refresh and reinforce the concepts and skills learned in a live or virtual instructor-led session.

e-Tools and Video Role PlaysWe give you the opportunity to embed tools that enable our processes and methodologies right into your CRM system for easy application.

Through our relationship with Rehearsal, we can enable your people to practice their new skills in a safe environment and provide sales managers with the opportunity to identify coaching opportunities that will shore-up weaknesses.


APPLICATION AND REINFORCEMENTMeasurement: QstreamMeasuring performance improvement is crucial to ensure that your solution is working, drive more learner and manager accountability, and identify proper course correction measures as needed. We help our clients measure performance improvement through our partnership with Qstream.

Qstream keeps things simple and engaging for your busy sales teams while reinforcing the capabilities that matter most. Responding to short text- or video-based challenge scenarios pushed to their mobile device or CRM. Reps practice the best approaches to sales challenges and gain points for demonstrating their knowledge.

The platform’s data-driven Coaching Hub engages sales managers and field coaches in the process, too. A graphical dashboard combines system-generated insights with single-click observations and CRM triggers that instantly identify who and what to coach.

Sales leaders can view capabilities data in unlimited ways with real-time heat maps, progress trends, team comparisons, and coaching activity reports.


USE CASESSales TransformationThe Greek philosopher Heraclitus said it best – The only thing that is constant is change, and nowhere is this truer than in business today. Technological innovation and competitive, demographic, or regulatory change are relentless, and companies must keep pace or get left behind.

Many of our new clients come to us because they need to transform but need help doing so. For example, one of our clients had an innovative solution and had to take market share from competitors. Their sales team had traditionally called procurement managers, focusing heavily on price. To be successful, they would now have to sell their new solution to line-of-business buyers who would appreciate the value of this innovative new offering. This was a significant shift in focus for our client, and they turned to us for help.

Sales transformation initiatives fail for several reasons. Often, leaders try to change too much too quickly, and in the process create chaos. Second, leaders become overwhelmed and paralyzed by the sheer scope of the change and move too slowly. Finally, sales transformation programs are poorly conceived and executed, and get labeled as “flavor of the month” and aren’t embraced.

We help you start your transformation with the end in mind by clarifying your strategies and objectives. Then, we’ll help you to identify and prioritize the critical behaviors and skills required across the different sales and supporting roles for individuals necessary for success, and a timeline to become proficient. We call this process “learning alignment.” It gives you a roadmap to success they’ve never seen before, the ability to prepare their teams for future success, and the ability to hold everyone accountable.

Finally, we will work with you to design and deliver the training and development to ensure their people – from front-line sales reps to managers – are ready, willing and able to do what’s expected. In some cases, we will reactivate training and enablement investments you’ve already made, and in other cases, we’ll design and deliver new training and tools.

Our simulation-based sales training approach works well in the context of a transformation because it helps reps and managers experience the future state you want in an active, hands-on way that is as close to reality as possible. The simulation experience is collaborative but competitive, creates a sense of urgency, and sends a strong message about what matters most. It also helps sales managers understand the change and develop the coaching skills necessary to support the change post training.

For more information about how we can help you successfully transform your sale organization, please contact us.


USE CASESSales Strategy ExecutionThere are many situations when you need your sales team to execute a new strategy to help you meet and exceed your sales targets, but you don’t need a full-fledged sales transformation.

We help you identify precisely what you need to do to bring this new initiative to life in the most effective an efficient manner across your customer-facing people.

For example, we had a client that knew they had to capture a more significant share of renewals as well as win-back customers who were transitioning portions of their business to competitors. Successfully executing this strategy would require service engineers to work closely with account teams to identify opportunities and expand relationships beyond the technical users with whom they typically interacted.

We started by working with sales leaders to break the strategy down into objectives and behaviors. It was important to define the new sales process, clarify roles and responsibilities, and determine the skills and behaviors necessary to execute this new approach. It would have been tempting to over-engineer the solution, but we brought a very pragmatic approach based on what we know works to “right size” the solution.

Then, we enabled the teams to learn the new process and develop the new skills through an end-to-end sales simulation. These were highly skilled professionals with years of experience. We didn’t need to teach them new skills, but rather help them discover how to apply their new skills in the context of this new sales approach necessary to execute the strategy. Through the learning activities, we surfaced several additional ideas to refine the strategy further and execute better.

This is just one application of how our sales simulations can help you execute a new strategy effectively and efficiently. We believe that experienced professionals learn best through hands-on use and self-discovery.


USE CASESReactivating Sales Improvement InitiativesEvery year, companies invest millions of dollars in implementing new sales methodologies and tools and develop new skills to improve sales. However, in many cases, these initiatives don’t stick because they are not correctly implemented and integrated into day-to-day selling activities.

For example, we often see organizations introduce a new methodology without thinking through how it will work with other methodologies and processes they already use. Similarly, we see salespeople loaded up with backpacks full of sales collateral without proper instruction for what to use when and how to best use it with customers.

When good programs die, the organization doesn’t get the excepted return on their investment. Furthermore, cynicism heightens, and your credibility potentially takes a hit making it even more challenging to change sales behaviors.

Through our sales simulations, we help you reactivate prior sales training investments in a way that is active, competitive and fun. Furthermore, we can help you connect the dots across multiple programs and methodologies, so your salespeople and managers experience first hand how everything fits in the context of winning business.

Although we have our own programs, we are methodology and tool agnostic. We can work with other popular programs such as Spin, Challenger, Solution Selling and Miller Heiman and incorporate tools such as Salesforce.com and other popular CRM systems. We also have the flexibility to delivery very comprehensive learning reactivations right down to quick skill tune-ups at national sales meetings.


USE CASESNew Hire OnboardingIf you’re like most of our clients, then recruiting quality sales people, accelerating their time to productivity, and minimizing attrition is critical to achieving your growth objectives. Through our simulations, we offer you a practical approach that is fun and extremely useful.

New hire onboarding typically fails because companies overwhelm new hires with volumes of disparate information, from business processes and regulations to systems and tools and product training, there’s just so much a new hire needs to know. While some of this unavoidable, companies often miss helping the new hire to “connect the dots” across all these resources to successfully sell a solution to clients.

That’s where we help.

First, if you don’t have an adequate new hire onboarding program or if you have gaps, we can design one for you. We have a comprehensive, modularized curriculum that is “plug and play” to help you get started quickly and with minimal risk.

Second, although we have methodology and skill programs, we are program and tool agnostic. This means we can integrate any program or tool into an onboarding experience that helps the new hire connect the dots and tie everything together in an immersive capstone learning experience.

Our simulations are often team-based and a bit competitive, enabling new hires to learn from experienced sellers and managers. This helps the new hire cut through the noise to see how effective selling is done and absorb tribal knowledge and traps they will encounter in real life. This also helps you sends a strong message about the collaborative, results-oriented, high-performance culture that you want to create.


USE CASESNew Product LaunchSuccessfully launching new products is critical to growing market share, margins and achieve revenue targets. Every year, companies spend billions of dollars developing a new product that doesn’t get traction and ultimately flop.

We have over 20 years of experience helping some of the world’s most trusted brands launch new products with more confidence and certainty. What we see is that too often, product launches focus too heavily on educating salespeople on the detailed aspects of the product and not nearly enough on understanding how the product is bought and how it should be sold.

This leads to the following key reasons why product launches fail:1. The sales person doesn’t understand the market and the competitive landscape2. The salesperson doesn’t know which prospects to target first 3. The new product requires the salesperson to sell to a different set of influencers4. The salesperson doesn’t know the decision-making criteria5. The sales person is not prepared to resolve new objections they will face

Our sales simulations help product managers better prepare sales teams to sell their product by overcoming the five reasons above and creating an end-to-end learning experience that encapsulates everything it takes to be successful. Product knowledge gets delivered but does so in the context of a live deal.

We will work with you to create a customized program that covers all the bases and is delivered in a way that is fun and competitive. Also, we will create a separate track for your sales managers to ensure that they know how to coach their teams to sell the new offering. Finally, we’ll deliver a capstone learning experience that connects all the dots and brings it all home for the team.

Our approach creates a higher level of accountability to learn and achieve results, and more enthusiasm to position the new offering because reps and managers are better prepared and understand the strategic rationale driving the new product.


USE CASESAligning Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success TeamsIt should come as no surprise to anyone that buyer behavior has changed drastically over the past several years. In response, companies have doubled down on digital and content marketing in hopes of influencing buyers and engaging them as early as possible in their sales cycle. The line between marketing and sales is blurring.

A similar dynamic exists between sales and customer success. Landing new customers are difficult and expensive. More than ever, companies require customer “renewals” to drive profitable growth. Customers have become wise and are unwilling to be “locked in” to business arrangements that don’t add value.

Companies that don’t align marketing, sales and customer success functions with customer value creation will become relics. However, this is easier said than done because there’s still a tendency for functions to think and behave siloed.

Our sales simulations give your marketing, sales and client success teams the opportunity to work together on essential customer scenarios in a safe, collaborative way. Whether your priority is on creating opportunities with new prospects, launching new products or growing in existing accounts, we can design the perfect simulation for your business.

When we do this, we will often incorporate content, tools, and processes that cut across functional boundaries. We often hear marketers complain that sales aren’t using their collateral, and we listen to sales complain the marketing collateral isn’t right. Similarly, we hear from customer success teams that sales sell solutions that are too difficult to deliver profitably, and sales complain that customer success is too rigid.

The simulation helps participants see the world from a different perspective. This helps to identify and resolve process conflict and gaps and make refinements to content and tools, so they can be used more effectively. The result is better alignment, cooperation, and solutions to everyday challenges that may impact the customer experience.


USE CASESNational Sales MeetingsNational sales meetings present a unique challenge and opportunity for sales, enablement and training leaders.

On the one hand, you’ve invested in travel and taking your team out of the field to be together in one place, and it would seem a lost opportunity to not offer some training during this time. On the other hand, salespeople are overloaded with new information about strategy, products, and comp plans. Much of this information is delivered lecture-style with PowerPoint, leaving participants daydreaming or nursing a hangover from the night before. Finally, there’s always too much content and too little time, and delivering a meaningful learning experience is next to impossible. Alternatively, is it?

Our sales simulations are the perfect approach for delivering a meaningful learning experience in a limited time. Whether you have a full or half day or even as little as 2 hours, we can design and deliver an experience your people will never forget.

We start by understanding your goals and strategies for the coming year, and the critical behaviors your people need to execute. From there, we will create a highly relevant simulation that is aligned with your strategy and what you need people to do differently in the new year.

For example, one of our clients faced a new disruptive competitor backed by a fresh round of VC funding and a new product. The simulation focused on how they would protect market share and position against this high-profile upstart.

The simulation is a team-based, competitive working session. We don’t use PowerPoint, and your people will be highly engaged and challenged to be the best in the group. If appropriate, we can include opportunities for product managers, marketers and customer success managers participate in a true cross-functional experience.

In addition to learning new skills, we create a safe, fun environment to share best practices and learn from each other. We can also create a parallel track for sales managers to enhance their coaching skills and improve their ability to support the new behaviors needed.


USE CASESSales Process Re-engineeringMany companies claim to have a sales process, but the process isn’t consistent or repeatable. When this happens, forecasting accuracy decreases, coaching effectiveness diminishes, and overall execution suffers.

We’ve found that companies with a well-defined sales process that hold managers accountable for following the process move opportunities 35% faster. We’ve also seen that organizations will generate 15% more post-sale revenue because they’ve done a better job establishing customer success conditions and driving utilization through the customer organization. Net-net, they gain more revenue at a faster pace.

We help companies build a well-defined sales process that is defined by a set of stages, activities and critical milestones. Critical milestones are actions that must be accomplished before an opportunity can move forward. We also help our clients embed their sales process into CRM.

The sales process becomes an excellent coaching aid for sales managers during pipeline and opportunity reviews. With the critical milestones well defined, the manager can now spend more time challenging the reps thinking around how well they’ve accomplished those milestones. This prevents opportunities from getting stuck and forces opportunities through at a quicker pace.

Like everything we do, we design your sales process with the help of a sales simulation. We gather a team of stakeholders together for a half day experiential working session. During the meeting, we simulate a customer buying scenario first to validate the buying process. We then guide the client through that buying experience while identifying the corresponding sales activities and outcomes, which then become the milestones.

Once the sales process has been defined, we help our clients with the rollout. This typically happens in three phases. First, we’ll help them embed their sales process in CRM. Then, we’ll help them roll-out the process to sales managers and train the sales managers to coach to the process. Finally, we’ll help roll the process out to the team. In doing this, we want to ensure their people understand the “what” of their sales process but even more importantly the “why.” We’ve found that when people understand the strategic rationale behind the process, they buy into it more enthusiastically.


NEXT STEPSContact UsThe best way to get started with us is to call us.

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Documents

IGNITE SELLING 2019 PROGRAM CATALOG · IGNITE SELLING . 2019 PROGRAM CATALOG. ... • Influencer Snapshot • Situational Snapshot • Competitive Snapshot • Value Snapshot •