5 Impressions courses in Glasgow

Unconscious bias from a fresh new perspective for anyone who interacts with, or makes decisions about, people; whether you work with customers, supervise staff or work in collaboration, this session will enhance your insight and interactions.

In the fast-changing world of business, and especially IT, everyone in the organisation should be involved in sales. One of the best ways is to give the customer an outstanding experience. The customer experience is the competitive battlefield of today. Sales may be won or lost here. You can either close a sale for a quick buck, or open a long-term relationship to create a high lifetime value customer. By developing excellent communication skills, rapport and, most of all, a desire to serve and listen to the needs of the customer to the best of their ability, both sales teams and other IT professionals will create trust, nurture relationships and develop awareness of other opportunities with the customer. By the end of this course, participants will be able to: * Understand the power of a positive customer experience in developing sales opportunities * Recognise and develop a sales opportunity when it arises * Engage with customers and develop rapport and trust * Use verbal and non-verbal communication skills and pick up on signals * Ask powerful questions - and listen to the answers * Create 'magic moments' for the customer * Turn a complaint into an opportunity * Know when to ask for referrals and testimonials * Pass on leads to the relevant people 1 INTRODUCTION * Aims and objectives * Beliefs about sales 2 BUILDING RAPPORT * First impressions * Short cuts to rapport * Finding common interests 3 SELLING OR SERVING? * Managing emotions and behaviour - Transactional Analysis * Moments of truth - creating 'magic moments' * Speed sells - the follow-up 4 MEETINGS * Planning a successful meeting * Pre-meeting connection and assistance * Sales meeting failure reasons * Right v wrong mindset 5 COMMUNICATION - VERBAL AND NON-VERBAL * The 3 Vs - Visual, Verbal, Vocal * Picking up on signals * 7 power questions * Questioning techniques * LISTEN - 3 types of listening skills 6 INFLUENCING * 6 levels of influence * Framing to change perspectives * Turning complaints into opportunities 7 REFERRALS * The power of referrals * How and when to ask for a referral * 5 steps from rapport to referral 8 PRESENTATION AND PITCHING (OPTIONAL SESSION) * Basic presentation structure and delivery * Creating powerful impressions * Creating a 60-second pitch * The elevator 10-second pitch - answering 'What do you do?' * Sales presentations * Emotion v Intellect - how to engage * Using visuals

The market for professional services is becoming increasingly competitive, with some firms and individuals becoming very effective at winning new work, leaving others lagging way behind. Given the choice between spending time on client work and business development work, we all tend to choose that which we feel to be easier, more attractive and more aligned with our image of ourselves. We stay within our comfort zones, we focus on client work, and we only resort to business development work when we have to, which can also lead to 'feast or famine' syndrome. The programme will help participants: * Understand the professional business development approach and the style that is appropriate for their business and their clients * Follow a process to guide their conversations and business development meetings * Prepare thoroughly for a business development meeting/contact with a client to ensure they use their time efficiently and maximise results * Create a great first impression and professional opening to a conversation * Ask open questions and listen effectively in order to spot opportunities, understand needs and progress the opportunity * Identify and understand buying and decision-making processes and criteria * Skilfully and confidently handle questions and objections * Sell the benefits of their services and approach over those of their competitors * Progress the sale by agreeing next steps and gaining commitment appropriately 1 INTRODUCTION * Aims and objectives of the programme * Personal introductions and objectives * Workshop overview 2 AN INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND SELLING FOR PROFESSIONALS * What is selling? * Who are you selling to? * The buying experience * What clients want * The four-step business development process * The business development cycle and pipeline management * Upselling and cross-selling as well as winning new clients 3 NETWORKING AND GENERATING LEADS * What is networking? * Networking objectives * It's not what you know but who you know * Asking for referrals and introductions * Making appointments from networking activity 4 OPENING THE SALES RELATIONSHIP/SALES MEETING * What potential customers are thinking * Judging first impressions * Creating positive first impressions * Building rapport and creating interest and impact * Earning the right 5 CORE COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR PROFESSIONAL SELLING * Overcoming barriers to listening * The art of listening * Questioning refresher * Types of questions * Questioning funnel 6 UNDERSTANDING AND IDENTIFYING NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES * Identifying the questions to ask to identify needs and opportunities * Questions to move us through the buying and selling process * Understanding their buying processes * Asking questions that position you as a 'trusted adviser' * The questions that give you a competitive advantage * Knowing when you have asked enough questions 7 INTRODUCING SOLUTIONS * Tailoring your 'pitch' to the client * Speaking the client's language * Using features and benefits * Applying the benefit cycle 8 HANDLING OBJECTIONS AND CONCERNS * Identifying the typical objections and concerns * Understanding why clients raise objections and concerns * Following a structure for handling objections * Handling the price objection 9 GAINING COMMITMENT * Knowing when to close * The art of checking * Recognising buying signals * Small c and big C 10 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER * Personal learning summary and action plans

When staff are new to sales it can seem daunting, especially when they have targets to meet. If the staff you need to promote your products and services get it wrong then it can knock their confidence and negatively impact how your customers see you as an organisation. This programme provides staff with the basic skills they need to sell. This course will help participants: * Profile customers * Research and identify potential new customers * Use the consultative sales process * Build effective rapport with customers * Identify customer needs through effective questioning and listening * Position products and services effectively * Close the sale or gain commitment to further action * Manage their customer portfolio to maximise sales 1 INTRODUCTION * Aims and objectives of the training * Personal introductions and objectives * Self-assessment of existing sales skills * Overview of content 2 KNOWING YOUR CUSTOMERS * Who are your customers, and what do they want from you? * What are your strengths, compared to your competitors? * Who are your new potential customers? * How do you communicate with new customers? * What do you need to know about your customers before you start to sell? * Making the initial approach * Planning your pipeline - keeping the customers coming 3 THE FOUR-STEP SALES PROCESS * Overview of the consultative sales process * Key benefits of using the consultative sales process * Focusing on behaviours not targets * The behaviours of a good salesperson * Common pitfalls and mistakes * Personal strengths and weaknesses 4 BUILDING RAPPORT * First impressions - Mehrabian theory of communication * Short cuts to building rapport * Looking out for clues as to how the customer is thinking * Looping back to keep the conversation flowing * Acknowledging past communication * Dealing with emotions such as anger * Setting the agenda to keep control * Getting past gatekeepers 5 QUESTIONING AND LISTENING * How to ask open questions to uncover information * Left brain questions * When closed question can be useful * What stops us listening? * The four levels of listening * How to develop your listening skills 6 PRESENTING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO CUSTOMERS * When to present * Using benefits not features * Making it personal * Using reciprocity * The tendency towards the middle * Using consistency 7 GAINING COMMITMENT * Testing the water * Dealing with objections using ACLEO * Asking for the business * Getting referrals * Ending with a personalised close * Following-up 8 MANAGING YOUR CUSTOMER PIPELINE * Spotting opportunities for cross-sales * Managing your portfolio * Maximising sales proactively * Review meetings * Customer satisfaction measures and surveys * Mystery shopping 9 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER * Skills practice * Personal learning summary and action plans

This highly practical one-day workshop has been designed specifically to help maximise sales where customers make contact by telephone. When customers contact us direct they have clearly already considered the possibility that they might buy from us, but we're still only half-way to making a sale. Unless we fully understand their needs and make it easy for them to buy, we may not secure the business. This workshop concentrates on the telephone skills and techniques needed to achieve the most positive outcome in any inbound customer call. A combination of excellent customer service skills and savvy sales awareness techniques will increase our chances of a successful outcome for both parties. The programme features the unique INBOUND model, to help remember the key principles for effective inbound telephone sales: Initial impressions Needs of the customer Bring them with you Open up the conversation Understand the triggers Narrow down the solutions Decision time! The programme also covers how to deal with difficult calls and challenging people - after all, every complaint is a sales opportunity! This programme will help participants: * Create the perfect interaction with any customer making contact by telephone * Make every call count * Build rapport quickly in any situation * Handle difficult calls and challenging people * Create sustainable and profitable relationships * Increase your sales conversions 1 THE INBOUND SALES PROCESS * Each customer who contacts us will be at a different stage of the sales process. Some might be making general enquiries whilst others will be ready to commit, having made most of their decisions already. Sales and customer service people need to be ready to find out the stage the customer has reached before helping them to make the right decision for them 2 ENGAGING WITH THE CUSTOMER * Having clarified where the customer is on their journey to making a purchasing decision, our next responsibility is to create and build a trusting relationship on both sides. This involves establishing rapport quickly to ease the communication process, thus enabling smooth transactions, both now and in the future 3 QUESTIONING AND LISTENING SKILLS FOR GATHERING INFORMATION * Developing these skills requires practice so that the communication becomes natural for the customer. This helps the customer to feel comfortable with us and work with us towards an effective solution. We discuss different types of question and how to use high-gain questions to uncover key information. Active listening will ensure that we can really help customers get what they need 4 OVERCOMING OBJECTIONS AND EXCUSES * If we have followed the process properly and really understood the customer, then there should no further objections or barriers to completing the transaction. The reality is that there will still be the occasional issue that needs clarifying, so we need to prepare for possible objections and questions that customers might have. This includes probing objections so that we fully understand the customer's perspective before constructing suitable responses or solutions 5 GAINING COMMITMENT AND ENDING THE CALL * Customers want to gain a solution to the issue they are facing and the sooner we can help them achieve that the better. Guiding the customer and helping them to believe in their own decision is part of our role. This section is dedicated to getting commitment all the way along the process, not just at the close 6 DEALING WITH DIFFICULT AND CHALLENGING SITUATIONS * The realisation that everybody is different, with different personality types, different ways of looking at the world and different goals, is key to understanding sales. With this is mind we discuss these differences and how we adapt our approach to ease communication and maintain trust and understanding 7 ACTION PLANS * Course summary and presentation of action plans