A two-day workshop
Are you buying or selling?
Whichever side of the fence you’re on, whichever end of the contract, you need a sense of commercial awareness. You need to know how and when to protect your own organisation’s interests, especially when warning bells should be ringing in your head when talking to the other party. But you also need an appreciation of the commercial and financial imperatives driving them and the decisions they make.
This commercial awareness training programme is designed to give you the necessary understanding of commercial behaviour, from basic principles to the business environment, the legal environment, the financial environment, and the negotiation environment.
The issues are similar whichever ‘side’ you’re on, although the programme can be tailored to different perspectives – commercial, sales, procurement, operational.
- Understand how they can best contribute to the success of the organisation
- Recognise the principal commercial and stakeholder issues
- Spot a red-flag issue when it arises
- Know when to escalate an issue – and to whom
- Read a contract
- Make sense of a set of accounts
- Develop their negotiation skills
Expert trainer
Graham specialises in providing high-quality consultancy, coaching and training in commercial and business skills, sales, sales management, customer service and personal productivity. He has a long career in sales and was a top-performing IT and solutions sales professional and sales manager. Before setting up his own consultancy, his last full-time role was as Managing Director of Sales Productivity and Development for a multi-national, helping develop a large European sales force. His work has taken him all over the world and involved him in working closely with hundreds of different organisations from all business sectors, his client list including such organisations as BT, Vodafone, AT&T, Orange, Pfizer, GSK, Boots, Unilever, American Express, Thomas Cook, Apple, Sony, Motorola, Cisco, MFI, Barclays Bank, LIFFE, Abbey National, Prison Service, Home Office, Law Society, BBC, Daimler-Chrysler, Citroen, Weetabix, Nikon, Shell and many, many others. In addition he has written over twenty books published in several different countries, including Companies don’t succeed – people do!, Sales Training Games, Telephone Tactics and Working Smarter.
Session outline
1. The elements of commercial behaviour and business acumen
- The key elements of success in a business
- Factors which make the difference between business success and failure in contracts and project management
- Examples of good and bad commercial behaviour (and contractual mistakes)
- Commercial awareness best practice checklist and summary
2. The commercial environment
- Understanding your company: business strategy, objectives / organisation
- Identifying and managing the network of internal and external relationships
- Briefing and communication skills
- Establishing and using authority and influence
- Pricing: the need to secure (or award) business at a reasonable margin
3. The legal environment
- What is a contract?
- The key elements of contract law
- Rights and remedies when contracts go wrong
- Key pitfalls to be aware of, eg, intellectual property, limits of liability, penalties and damages
- Legal awareness best practice checklist and summary
4. The financial environment
- Understanding the key financial documents: the balance sheet, the profit and loss account and the cash flow statement
- Profits versus cash flow
- Methods of costing and the benefits and pitfalls of each
- Discounted cash flow and Net Present Value as a way of evaluating projects and pricing
5. Effective negotiation
- Win-win and win-perceived win forms of negotiation
- Push and pull styles of persuasion; the five modes
- Behavioural skills in negotiation
- How to plan and structure your negotiation
- The most commonly made negotiation errors
- Negotiation best practice checklist and summary
