Coalface Dialogue Services Business Acumen

Many organisations have over the last few years invested heavily in skills training for procurement, sales and service. With the global financial crisis there has been so much focus on price that many procurement, sales and service personnel forget the big picture.

Taking sales as an example, interviews at C-level and with senior management of customer organisations show that very few sales representatives or account managers fully meet the expectations of their customers. Unfortunately too many sales representatives still approach complex sales as if they are ‘just another sale'. Too often they fall into the vendor trap, they become obsessed with price and fail to negotiate effectively or create any real lasting value.

Below is a selection of programs that move your procurement, sales and service personnel to be more effective by thinking about the ‘big picture'.

This program provides participants with a thorough understanding of how a business is conducted and the key reports and business levers available to a business owner. The course is based on a business simulation exercise, which requires teams to manage a business, competing in a market place, over 8 quarters, making 37 decisions each quarter.

Topics covered include

• What types of business entities exist and the difference between these
• How an executive uses the Profit and Loss to manage a business
• What the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statements are used for in a business
• What is equity and why do some companies become ‘pull' companies rather than ‘push' companies
• Ratio analysis to understand a company's performance from a shareholders, an employee's, and a bank manager's perspective
• Various management control techniques from strategic, to tactical planning, from budgets to exception reporting
• Major issues on the mind of a senior executive

Whatever you sell, this program will help you get better outcomes for you and your client, and you will feel better about doing it.

Some of the learning outcomes from this 2-day practical workshop include:

• Understand the 5 elements of interest-based dialogue.
• Plan for and walk-through an interest-based dialogue intervention using an 8-step structured methodology.
• Recognising strengths, motivation, behaviours, preferences and how we are perceived by others
• Understanding the different relationships we have with different buyers and stakeholders
• Recognising when to change those relationships and adjust the approach for different buyers
• Interacting in ways that clearly signal a genuine focus on the buyer's interests, and a view to create options for mutual gain
• Vividly describing the situation that the client wants solved (problem) or wants to experience (opportunity)
• Collaborating with your buyers to jointly identify and evaluate potential solutions, products, services and implementation required to make the described situation a reality
• Casting the story to make it easier for the client to say YES

Interest-based dialogue also has applications in leadership, management, problem solving, conflict resolution procurement, sales and service.

For any business, the customer experience is a defining point in its relationships with its customers.

This is the ‘moment of truth', where mission and strategy translate into reality, where customers form their perceptions of an organisation. Although Moments of Truth was conceived as a customer service programme, it is highly applicable for staff and consultants that support personnel in front-line customer-facing roles. More than 200,000 people have been trained using the Moments of Truth programme.

Designed for Multinationals

Moments of Truth can be delivered by your own internal staff so it can be rolled out quickly and cost effectively across large populations and geographies.

Available in English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and several European languages.