Creating Business Value
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In today's highly competitive business environment, the ability to add value makes the difference between sales success and failure.

Creating Business Value is a program designed to provide sales people with a “best practice” value generation process that focuses on understanding the customer’s business needs and developing value-based offers that leverage your company's core competencies/organizational assets to drive value through your customer's business. This approach forces sales people to “think out of the box ” and build innovative value-based offers that impact their customer’s business well beyond the product/service itself.

Through using this approach, you will protect margins, create competitive immunity, enhance the overall business-to-business relationship with key customers, and master the “internal sell.” Sales people will also learn how to quantify the value their offer generates, in customer terms, and build compelling value propositions for their customers.

Course objectives include:

• Know why creating value is of critical importance in today's highly competitive business environment.
• Understand the forces impacting your customer’s business and identify their key business initiatives.
• Learn to “think like your customer ” in determining how they create value for their customers.
• Learn to structure value-based offers that directly impact those key customer business initiatives.
• Learn how to drive value beyond the product/service through offer enablers and leveraging core competencies/assets of your organization.
• Learn how to develop innovative deals that drive differentiation and gain competitive immunity.
• Develop a compelling value proposition for your customer that is quantified in customer terms.
• Learn how this value-based process can be applied to partnerships/alliances, distributor relationships, new product development opportunities, executive access and engagement, market segment strategies, individual deals, and to strengthen the overall business-to-business relationship.

Creating Business Value - Live Opportunity Workshop™ (CBV-L)

Creating Business Value Live is a program designed to provide sales/customer teams with a value generation process that focuses on understanding the customer’s business needs and developing value-based offers. The focus is on bundling your product and service solution sets and leveraging your company's core competencies into the deal. This approach forces account teams to “think out of the box ” and build value-based offers that impact their customer’s business well beyond the product/service itself. Through using this value-based approach, you will protect margins, create competitive immunity, enhance the overall business-to-business relationship with key customers, and master the “internal sell.”

Customer teams will also learn how to quantify the value their offer generates, in customer terms, and build compelling value propositions for their customers.  “Live” sales offer opportunities are brought to class and sales teams are shown how to transform them into compelling value propositions, quantified in customer terms. They will also identify and develop a strategy to gain access to the customer’s executive decision makers and to position their value-based offer with them.

Participants will learn to:

• Solve problems and execute with confidence with a foundation in Adversity Quotient™ principles and problem-solving techniques.
• Envision the core concerns of their customers.
• Anticipate both the customer’s product requirements and their pressing business needs.
• Understand how to deliver value as defined by the customer.
• Analyze and synthesize customer information and build compelling value propositions that leverage PBS’s total value to the customer and create competitive advantage at the same time.
• This program features a “best practice” value creation process that was nominated for “Innovative Process of the Year” by 3M.
Interpret the meaning of customer initiatives and proactively introduce creative sales solutions that assist the customer in achieving their goals while engaging more PBS product and services.
Gain access to and engage customer executives.
Understand how to leverage the assets of PBS to facilitate customer’s success.
Create value in ongoing sales opportunities.
Shift the relationship focus from product to business orientation.

Unique Features

Classroom Session
Participants will analyze their current sales opportunities as case studies. The sales teams will use real opportunities and develop a compelling value proposition, an executive access strategy, and articulate an executive value message that demonstrates your firm’s capability to affect those things that the specific customer executives care most about. 

• With this unique program feature, The Summit Group helped HP close a $200 million deal with Cingular.

Account Management Storyboard

A powerful summary of account knowledge, articulated penetration strategy, and action plans for success.

• Available electronically for paper production and as a “fill-in” electronic form that enables the account plans to be easily shared/managed over the Internet or company intranet.
• The Account Management Storyboard is also an excellent vehicle for sales coaching, strategy review sessions, and identifying and correcting any competitive vulnerability.

For account teams, the storyboard will be an efficient and effective way to present opportunities to executives and others engaged in the pursuit.

Organizational Impact

• Increase closing ratios by positioning solutions that are customer priorities.
• Increase share and margins.
• Improve/increase executive access with valued customers.
• Impact customers by transforming salespeople into business partners and valued assets.
• Launch a value/solution discipline across all functional areas and accelerate the value-selling culture.
• Differentiate your firm as an innovative business partner that deeply understands the customer’s business, and as a result, can facilitate customers’ success.

Course Objectives include:

• Identify customer’s key business initiatives and structure value propositions/offers that directly impact those initiatives.
• Learn how to creatively structure deals that drive value well beyond the product/service itself.
• Develop value propositions/offers that leverage your products/services/solutions and core competencies across your organization.
• Build and effective “internal sell ” strategy to secure support for non-traditional deals.
• Apply a “best practice” approach to determining the components of your offer based upon total customer impact and overall deal feasibility.
• Develop a cross-functional resource alignment strategy to connect subject matter experts across company boundaries to engage the customer with your organization.
• Develop a compelling value proposition for your customer that is quantified in customer terms and leverages appropriate product/service solutions.
• Build and execute a companion sales strategy to close this opportunity.
• Effectively construct and articulate a value proposition, to the identified decision makers, that reflects the total business impact and value delivery capability your organization offers.

Business Engagement Strategies and Tactics™ (BEST)

BEST is an integral part of the value selling process.  Creating productive relationships with key executives is essential for successful value selling. While CBV is the “what” of value selling, BEST is the “how”. The tailored sales simulation provides the opportunity for participants to practice and refine the skills they acquired in CBV. This learning experience adds to their overall business acumen and provides strategies for, and practice on, penetrating accounts and building relationships with key decision makers within the account.

Participants learn to:

• Gain access to and interact with top decision makers.
• Read business opportunities.
• Effectively position themselves with senior levels of management as a value added resource.
• Develop and apply key customer business knowledge to advance the relationship.
• Adjust their level of business dialogue for successful customer engagements at any level or within any functional area.
• Uncover key business issues, initiatives and opportunities of the customer and translate them into compelling value solutions.

Unique Features

Sales Simulation

Skills are applied and developed through a day-long sales simulation that requires salespeople to manage all aspects of account penetration, executive access, and engagement strategies, while determining the overall business potential of the account. This simulation features a customized case from your live customer base focused on live sales opportunities.
Panel Discussion
This program has the highly recommended option to conclude with a senior executive participating in a panel discussion and in-depth Q&A directly with the participants.

Business Impact

• Rapid payback from content that is customized to the unique business issues of your firm
• Larger margins/share.
• Improve/increase executive access with valued customers.
• Build relationships higher/wider/deeper within PBS’s customer base.
• Enhance customer’s view of salespeople as business partners and valued assets.
• Differentiate you as an innovative business partner that deeply understands the customer’s business and as a result can facilitate their success.

Creating Customer Insight™ (CCI)

Knowledge acquisition and interpretation is the key to value generation. The Internet is the most dynamic knowledge acquisition vehicle in the world. It is essential for sales professionals to be masters at using the Internet as a source to develop in-depth and valuable customer information. The intent of the Knowledge Acquisition and Interpretation Using the Internet workshop is to enable sales people to effectively use the Internet to acquire, understand, and apply information essential for maximizing their ability to increase their overall value to their customers.

The students will learn how to access the best information databases and select the essential information to build their knowledge of their targeted accounts. Key information such as company profiles, financials, key decision makers, industry trends and issues, competition, products/services, business initiatives, and opportunities are all seconds away from them … if they know where to find this information.

The workshop is highly interactive, participative, team-based, and places a strong emphasis on application of this knowledge to account planning and overall value delivery. Exercises are specifically geared to enable the students to get specific information from the Internet and how to understand and leverage this information to proactively engage and support their top accounts. Participants will actually access the various Internet sources in class and learn to navigate to the best vehicles for account information placing them in an optimum position to build their account and industry expertise. Also by knowing exactly where to go to get the essential account and business knowledge, will save them a tremendous amount of time. The program features the opportunity to have the students construct the knowledge framework for their top accounts back on the job.

This course is designed to enable the participants to:

• Fortify account planning and customer knowledge through the Internet tools.
• Learn how best practice companies use the Internet to actually manage their top customer accounts.
• Understand and effectively access the most relevant information and databases available on the Internet to use in their account strategies and build their overall business and industry knowledge.
• Each student will leave with the very best and most relevant Internet knowledge sources loaded on their laptop computers.
• Construct a proactive Internet knowledge framework that will automatically send you the most key information you want on your top accounts without any searching. The information will be sent directly to you at no cost and without consuming computer memory.

Creating BusinessValue™ (CBV)

This program is based on fifteen years of sales research in Fortune 500 companies where the most outstanding sales people were observed on actual sales calls to determine what specific sales behaviors they use to consistently be top achievers.  These sales skills are identified and taught to the students.  This program also features customized sales case studies that allow the sales people to effectively apply these sales skills in real world scenarios. Students learn how to identify the personality style of their customers and how to adapt their selling style for optimum results.  They will also learn what persuasion style works best for their sales environment.  Concentration is also on uncovering and developing customer needs and effectively positioning your solution to maximize your probability of sale. This program uses lecture, videos, audio exercises, role-plays, and peer-to-peer coaching to facilitate learning. 

Objectives:

Upon completion of this course the students will be able to:

• Identify and use persuasion styles that are most effective for their actual sales environment and ensure long-term relationships.
• Understand and demonstrate sales behaviors that increase overall sales professionalism as defined by the customers.
• How to set and measure effective sales call objectives.
• Increase sales effectiveness when dealing directly with the customer in face-to-face or telephone sales contacts.
• How to establish meeting premise to the customer. (i.e. Area of responsibility, Why are you there?  Why should the customer listen to you?)
• How to position and secure customer agreement on the agenda.
• Identify customers’ personality styles and adapt your selling style to optimize sales effectiveness.
• How to uncover and build customer needs to increase the probability of success of the sale.
• How to use advanced questioning techniques to develop customer needs while increasing willingness to take action.
• Know when and when not to offer your solution.
• Overcome and handle customer objections effectively and efficiently.
• Learn three ways to demonstrate product capability and the most probable customer responses to each.
• Understand the importance of sales call planning and how to use it effectively to increase sales success.
• How to effectively gain customer commitment
• How to close the sale.
• Types of closing techniques and when and how to use them.
• Customized role-plays for application of learning.

Course Outline – Key Components

• Types and levels of customer relationships
• Commodity
• Vendor
• Consultative
• Trusted Advisor
• Determining your sales persuasion style and its effectiveness
• Setting customer contact objectives
• Four stages of a sales call
• Opening
• Identifying customer needs
• Confirming your ability to meet those needs
• Gaining customer agreement
• Identifying your customer’s social style and adjusting your sales approach for maximum impact
• Customer needs development
• Sales role plays
• Feature, advantage, and benefit selling
• Objection prevention and handling
• Obtaining customer commitment
• Closing methods

Value Exchange Workshop™ (VEW)

The Value Exchange Workshop provides skills and knowledge about strategies and tactics required to negotiate successfully in any business situation.  This negotiation approach is based on Harvard University techniques featured in the books Getting To Yes and Getting Past No, and is designed to enable parties to craft, negotiate, and reach agreements while enhancing both the business relationship and protecting the targeted opportunity.  This program features intensive application of all skills and concepts presented.  Skills are acquired through conducting nine actual negotiations in class, participation in workshop simulations, and practice exercises.  Students will learn to effectively plan and execute negotiations strategies for a variety of engagements.  Attendees will learn a proven “best practice” five-step strategy for "principled negotiations" and learn how to successfully apply this approach to “live” negotiations that they are actually involved in.  Win-win strategies and tactics will also be examined.  The program concludes with the people actually building a negotiations strategy for an actual negotiation they have to conduct back on the job.  They will role-play this negotiation in class with observation and coaching from their peers and the facilitator. 

Topics include:

• Positional bargaining versus principled negotiation
• Strategy for negotiations (inventing deal and value-driven options for mutual gain, using independent standards to validate offer approach, developing your best alternatives and walk away positions, uncovering real interests behind the positions negotiators take)
• Dealing with people problems
• Handling dirty tricks, stonewalls, lock-in positions, and other difficult cases. 

Students will actually participate in multiple business negotiations in class, both in one-on-one and team negotiation situations.  Learning will be facilitated by lecture, video, workshops, role-plays, and simulated “real world” sales negotiations.

Objectives:

Upon completion the student will be able to:

• Plan, prepare, and execute an effective business negotiation strategy.
• Develop a best alternative to a negotiated agreement.
• Be able to apply countermeasures to effectively deal with "dirty tricks" employed in negotiations.
• Identify clear customer needs; handle various personalities and people issues.
• Negotiate in a way that preserves the opportunity and enhances the overall business relationship.

The core outcome of the program is to instill the capabilities to creatively structure agreements that have maximum value and satisfy the business interests of both parties.

Communicating Business Value™ (CoBV)

The ability to effectively present information to audiences of varying sizes is a critical skill in today’s business world. However, most people consider presenting to be a highly stressful and uncomfortable situation. Through this program, students develop the physical skills required to deliver effective presentations. In addition, they will learn how to organize presentation content for maximum effectiveness. Throughout the program, emphasis is placed on reducing nervousness and channeling energy for delivery in the most powerful way. Students will be provided with tools for audience analysis, structure of the presentation format/content, organization of your materials, and managing challenging question and answer sessions.

This program accommodates a smaller sized class due to the intensive amount of practice and detailed coaching that each student receives. It is highly participative, with each student making eight presentations during the course. Through the use of videotaping, numerous exercises, and highly interactive coaching from the instructor and peers, students develop and master the skills required to deliver effective presentations. In addition, they will learn how to organize their presentation content for maximum effectiveness. Throughout the program, emphasis is placed on reducing nervousness and channeling energy for delivery in the most powerful way. Students will be provided with tools for audience analysis, structuring the presentation, format/content development, organization of your materials, and managing challenging question and answer sessions.

Course objectives include:

• Master the physical skills necessary for delivering persuasive and powerful presentations.
• Learn techniques to reduce nervousness.
• Learn how to think clearly under pressure, handling difficult but common presentation situations.
• Learn to plan, organize, and develop persuasive presentations and how to shape the content for any audience.
• Learn and demonstrate the “best practice” secrets of the most effective presenters.
• Understand the importance of audience analysis in tailoring your presentation to the needs of the audience.
• Learn how to handle team presentations.
• Learn how to handle all presentation logistics and deliver with different media (i.e. PowerPoint, microphones, podiums, room set-up, etc.)
• Learn to effectively manage question and answer sessions.
• Learn how to avoid the seven deadly sins of presentations.

Creating Impactful Communication™ (CIC)

In today's ever-changing business environment, managers and the organizations that they support are faced with increasing challenges. This results in a much greater need for effectively directed and highly motivated employees. The skills necessary to motivate team members are based upon an ability to communicate effectively. This program provides all the tools you will need to raise your communications proficiency to new highs. This highly interactive program has been designed to provide managers and supervisors with the foundational skills necessary to be an effective communicator, and to focus those skills in several specific disciplines required of effective managers.

The course provides a foundational proficiency in the communications skills so critical in today's work environment. Through the use of exercises and role-plays, participants are provided with an opportunity to develop and refine their communications skills.

Course objectives include:

• Understand the importance of communications in building employee loyalty and customer satisfaction.
• Identify communications styles and adapt these styles to optimize trust and relationship building.
• Understand advanced questioning techniques and effective listening techniques for enhanced performance.
• Develop the ability to integrate advanced questioning techniques with effective listening to optimize data gathering.
• Effectively communicate clear direction, expectations, and goals of the work team.

Creating Financial Value™ (CFV)

In today’s challenging economy, companies must closely scrutinize every major investment. These companies, our customers, are operating under strict investment guidelines to meet ambitious ROIs and payback periods. This reality makes financial selling an indispensable element of a sales organization’s value-selling philosophy. Sales organizations must develop sound business cases with their customers that financially justify proposed solutions.

The Creating Financial Value (CFV) workshop will equip your sales organization with the tools and skills needed to thrive in this financial selling environment. This two-day program defines in dollars and cents the value propositions on which all major buying decisions are based. Using a business case development template and a customized software tool, CFV teaches participants to create and present the financial business case from the ground up.

Course objectives include:

• Initiate discussions with the customer that identify the financial evaluation process, financial buying criteria, and metrics and measurements that will be used to make buying decisions
• Build value propositions that demonstrate how proposed solutions positively impact the customer’s business operations and financial statements and answer the two questions all customers ask when making a buying decision: 1) Why buy this at all? and 2) Why buy this from you?
• Adopt financial-based selling strategies that focus on the drivers and metrics that customers use to make buying decisions
• Use business case software tools that analyze the financial impacts of a business decision on supplier and customer’s financial statements and metrics such as NPV, ROI, ROA, IRR, and payback period
• Use the business case development template to create a business case that supports the proposed solution set, to include:
• Industry, competitive, and company pressures
• Customer needs driving the proposed solution
• The suite of value propositions that demonstrate the business, operational, and financial impacts of the proposed solution
• Financial analysis demonstrating impacts on key customer metrics and financial statements
• Risk and expected value analysis
• Articulation of the business case to the customer