Events

Knowing Your Stuff Isn’t Enough to Close Business

So, What’s Missing?!

Join us for this highly interactive 3-session boot camp where you’ll learn and actively practice:

1. Consultative business development approach
2. Presentation skills – leading with your key strength(s) and passion
3. Solving client problems instead of selling them your stuff – how everyone wins

What: Boot Camp - Turning Knowledge into Closing Business

When: August 13, 20, 27 9:30 to 1:00 pm

Where: Energy Ace - Take Marta and be eligible for a drawing!

Who: Business professionals especially green ones in the Metro Atlanta Area

By: Southeast Green and Our Green Value

Cost: Early Bird $149.95 ends August 1st/$199.95

Space is limited!

Registration is open!

Bonus! First 15 people who register get 30,000 banner ads on Southeast Green for free! That's a $300 dollar value.

Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with any questions.

Have more questions? Read Below

Knowing Your Stuff Isn’t Enough to Close Business

So, What’s Missing?!

Join us for this highly interactive 3-session boot camp where you’ll learn and actively practice:

• Consultative business development approach

• • We’ll start with a discussion, and example practice, of the difference between transactional and consultative selling. (A whitepaper on the subject will be sent to participants prior to the start of class.)
  • Since strong communication skills are needed for consultative selling, we’ll begin this segment with an active listening self-assessment, then discuss the results and make a 3 goal plan for individual improvement. (Each person will have different goals.)
  • Consultative selling is grounded in the ability to ask great questions; not just good ones. We’ll go over the art of asking questions – learning to ask better questions, to answer with a question for clarification before answering, diffusing hostile / confrontational questions, etc.
  • We’ll discuss several principles of “the art of persuasion” referencing the work of Robert Cialdini, PhD. and why they should be used in your consultative approach. (If participants have not read “Yes, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive” it is highly recommended.)
  • Regardless of size of business, yours or that of your prospect, first contact without proper homework can be disastrous. For this reason, we’ll examine what it takes from a discovery and network perspective to be genuinely ready to interact with a prospect – especially if this is a team and not just an individual.
  • Bonus – sitting at a conference table. The seats of power, the seats you don’t want to occupy, and the best seats for avoiding confrontation. (We’ll give this a try to see how it feels – role playing.)
  • During lunch participants will paired (2’s, 3’s) to practice “ask another question” until they think they’re ready to demonstrate progress.

• Presentation skills – leading with your key strength(s) and passion
  • After an initial review of the prior week, and check in on personal practice and progress, we’ll turn out attention to presentation skills.
  • The initial discussions will center on why specificity builds credibility, but how too much information can kill even the “best possible solution” presentation. We’ll discuss and demonstrate speaking from the heart while staying grounded in common sense and logic. Participants will learn and then practice connecting to every person in their presentation audience, why this is a must and how to do it well. We’ll also cover cadence – the rhythm of natural conversation – and how that must be employed to avoid sounding like a machine.
  • Pulling a play from the playbook at Harvard Business press, we’ll discuss how and why becoming “a great explainer” will get you very far with your audience. Boot camp participants will learn what it means to inject their communications with verve and enthusiasm as a means of persuasion, but they also need to include an explanation for the excitement. We’ll not just talk about this, we’ll flex these muscles also in active practice by answering: what does it mean and why are we doing it? (if you can’t answer that for your prospect, you’ve probably not done enough homework / discovery) And, we’ll cover why it’s important to:

1) define what it is

2) define what it isn’t

3) define what you want the other person/people to do

• Dr. Robert Cialdini’s work on persuasion will be revisited, but this time about when it’s best to open with your weakest / most difficult point, and then immediately offer your key strength.
• We’ll talk about the skills required to uncover your key strengths in any given situation; and how that won’t always be the same each time. Then, we’ll cover and practice finding the intersection of your passions (and we hope your great solution) with the passions, wants and needs of your prospect.
• Lastly, we’ll discuss if your presentations just stink. We’ll do this using bad and good examples of :

• Slide review
• Style review
• Body language
• Making connections with every person in the room

• Bonus: Gut check. Are you simply cannon fodder for the invitation to present, and if so, how to avoid these situations in the future. You have better things to do with your time, effort and reputation.

• Solving client problems instead of selling them your stuff – how everyone wins
  • After we’ve reviewed the major themes we’ve covered so far in boot camp, and answer any questions about practice, we’ll move on to pulling it all together to solve your prospect or client problems instead of just trying to sell them your stuff.
  • Understanding the role of “trusted advisor” rather than sales person is critical. We’ll not only cover what it takes from a personal standpoint, but also from building a network of trusted, complementary professionals to whom you can refer.
  • Getting to the real motivation of your prospect is like having every secret combination to all the locks involved in a successful outcome – for you and the prospect or client. Participants will learn why going well beyond “do you have authority to make this decision” and focusing on uncovering the motivation(s) of their contact can indeed close the deal before the details even hit the table.
  • We’ll team up in small groups to role play (with “situation” sheets prepared in advance). Participants will work together to represent a company buying and a company selling. This will be done in formats of 1:1, 1:several and lastly 1:many.
  • The majority of this session will be interactive, with boot campers playing many roles, and the rest of the group observing, critiquing and offering insights and suggestions immediately afterward.
  • We’ll close out the brown bag time with participants working to solidify appropriate business connections / relationships with others in the room – for the next time they don’t have the perfect solution, but they know someone who might – and can make the referral with confidence.
  • Bonus: why referrals and testimonials are critical, and why the person giving them to you needs to “match” your clients and/or prospects.

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Mark your calendars now for Aug. 13, 20 and 27 – 9:30am – 1:00pm. Early bird registration will begin on Friday, July 9^th. Starting August 1^st, the price will go up.

There is a strict limit on participants to make sure everyone gets the help they need. Seats are filling, so if you want to take part, don’t wait to reserve your seat.