Prospecting for new business can present a challenge for many sales people.  A new client and I spent time reviewing the skills of their existing sales team.  While their team was technically very skilled, they lacked the tools to prospect for new business.  This was a critical factor for them to win more market share in an extremely competitive business and to meet their sales targets.  I recommended adding three months of team coaching after the training to support the learning.   This Director had no previous experience with team coaching and agreed based on my recommendation.

We started the coaching the week following the training.  Within two weeks I received multiple emails announcing the wins that this team was starting to achieve.  The sales people where charting new territory and asking better questions than they had ever done in the past.  The energy was contagious and really ignited the competitive edge within their sales team.

Sometimes the follow up coaching for any training can be the extra support needed as people learn to apply their new skills.

Athena partnered with a financial organization to support them with several training initiatives for their annual offsite. They decided they would run a leadership program, a True Colors assessment program and the third offering proved to be a little more challenging.  In fact, our client called it the “Ultimate” training challenge.  They had one group in the organization that had been included in many training programs in the past and the results always came back the same. This group found training a waste of their time.

Our client wanted to continue to include them in their offsite since the rest of the company was also participating.  She shared with me some of the programs and exercises that had been done in the past.  I explained to her we have some very seasoned and creative facilitators in the Athena Alliance and I was pretty confident one of them would be able to come up with something that would work.

One of our senior facilitators proposed a very dynamic program that involved a lot of interaction, problem solving and creative expression. It was a huge success (The group actually coloured using crayons).  In fact, one of the comments on the evaluation form was “finally a program worthwhile.”

Initially a program may appear to be a challenge and with the creative expertise of an experienced facilitator, a program that is a perfect fit for any audience can be designed.

I was asked to connect this particular client with one of my partners that delivers team building programs.  We explored the events that were happening and not happening that caused this manager to think there was a need for training.  The companies service levels had started to drop and they were getting more and more customer complaints.  After he investigated he found out that the root cause of the problem was lack of trust and no one was accepting responsibility for the errors and they were finger pointing. During our assessment we discussed the fact that the inside sales people (who also serviced the customer accounts) and the outside sales people didn’t trust each other and when a mistake was made they would point fingers at each other.

The manager was clear this had to stop and wanted me to connect him with one of my partners experienced in this area.  I spoke with the alliance partner that I knew had worked in very similar environments and had achieved great results.  We recommended an outward bound type of training where they would interact with each other in ways were they would build trust.  They would also create some new guidelines on how they would work together going forward.

When the client first read the proposal he was a little reluctant and wasn’t sure that climbing walls and jumping off pamper poles was going to be the solution.  He said he trusted that we knew what was best and they booked a weekend offsite.  The weekend was challenging and very rewarding for all who participated.

I received a voice mail on the Monday following the training from the manager expressing how pleased he was at how the weekend unfolded.  He said he was thrilled and was going to make this an annual event.

How do get a good fit to become a perfect fit?

Customer Service – Going Beyond Expectations

I was called into a meeting with a new client.  The industry of this client is highly emotional and required a special skill set to interact effectively with their customers.  My client was interested in providing some of their staff with customer service training.  I met with both the Director and Manager of Human Resources.  They were both very clear as to the outcomes they wanted to achieve as a result of the training.  They wanted the experience of their customers to be one of compassion, empathy and professional.  Given the very sensitive nature of their business I could see there were two members of our alliance that would be able to provide them with the customized solution they were looking for.  Both these alliance members had extensive experience with this type of training and they both had very different approaches.  I thought either of them would do a great job and recommended that the client meet with both of them.

I met with the client to discuss next steps after they had met with both alliance partners.  The client loved them both and I suggested we combine the programs of the two alliance partners to create a totally unique and customized program.  They were thrilled with the suggestion and my alliance partners were eager to collaborate.  Once the final program was approved the client concluded this program would be so impactful they wanted the entire company to take the program.   In the month that followed small groups were taken through this highly engaging course and the feedback from the participants was fantastic. Three years later the client is still pleased with the difference this training made in the way their employees interact with their customers.