New business and lead generation

A 2-day workshop

Generating new leads and new business can be both time-consuming and frustrating.

It’s not easy – it takes skill, careful preparation and the creation of effective models and methods, even perhaps using formal approaches and scripts. Once generated, a new lead or enquiry must also be carefully managed to maximise the potential revenue it can generate.

But it’s crucial to get it right. If your company can afford not to worry about getting new business – congratulations! If your company is completely confident that it is performing at peak potential in generating new leads – again, congratulations! But if your company is working in the real world, couldn’t your team do with some help, to become even just that little bit more effective, to make the process just that little less painful?

This highly practical, intensive workshop gives sales teams the proven strategies and tactics they need to build a sustainable new business pipeline.

Discover:

  • How to generate new business leads and opportunities
  • Ways of gaining additional business and referrals from existing customers and contacts
  • New and proven business-development skills
  • How to hit your target every month!

The focus is on the five main methods of generating new business sales and opening new accounts:

  • Online marketing – social media, email marketing, lead generation websites, video-based marketing
  • Making appointments by telephone – planning the call, telephone techniques, integrating with email and online marketing
  • Power networking and B2B referral-based marketing
  • Developing new business opportunities from a lead or enquiry – converting leads into business
  • Organised persistence – CRM and prospect-tracking

Crucially:

  • The programme can be tailored to reflect the realities of your particular market sector, target demographic, etc
  • It addresses how to use all the methods discussed in a planned, co-ordinated fashion, for maximum effectiveness.

Learning objectives

This course will help participants:

  • Develop a clear and consistent process for new business development and lead-generation
  • Master the secret of effective new business development and lead-generation – ‘only sell the appointment or next stage of the sales process, not your product or service’
  • Set and achieve the right level of new business development and lead-generation activity to achieve your personal and organisational sales goals
  • Apply the key principles of effective prospecting and pipeline management using a proven toolkit and approach
  • Overcome the most common ‘put-offs’ when conducting telephone or face-to-face business-development and lead-generation activities
  • Develop an engaging telephone voice and manner – and a ‘networking personality’
  • Qualify potential opportunities with more accuracy on a consistent basis
  • Prioritise opportunities and manage their time when sourcing new business
  • Discover online sources of leads, contacts and referrals
  • Overcome psychological blocks to cold or warm calling – theirs and the client’s
  • Identify potential prospects – and decision-makers and influencers within target prospects – with greater accuracy
  • Make outbound sales or appointment calls with improved confidence, control and results
  • Improve the conversion of calls to appointments by using more effective questions and sales messages
  • Get past gatekeepers and assistants more effectively
  • Make the most of your CRM software and systems

Who should attend?

This highly interactive programme has been specifically designed to provide sales and marketing professionals, managers and new business development consultants with the most effective tools, tactics and techniques to develop new business leads and opportunities. Team members at all levels will benefit from the insights and skills development they will gain from the programme.

Format

A highly engaging, motivational two-day workshop using a stimulating mix of formal trainer input, group discussion, practical exercises, case studies, and breakout sessions designed to reinforce new skills. The comprehensive course material has been designed to be practical, easy-to-use and to facilitate learning.

Special features

The majority of the training we deliver is either tailored or completely bespoke. This workshop can therefore be delivered entirely as advertised, or it can be tailored to your particular requirements, or we can simply take it as a starting point for a conversation with you before we draft a completely bespoke programme for you – the choice is yours. As a rule, there is no additional charge for this service.

Expert trainer

Graham specialises in providing high-quality consultancy, coaching and training in 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. His most recent full-time role was as Managing Director of Sales Productivity and Development for Thomson Financial, 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!, 90 Brain Teasers for Trainers, Customer Service Games for Training, Sales Training Games, Telephone Tactics and Working Smarter.

Known internationally as both a trainer and a popular motivational speaker, he believes that effective learning has to be interactive and challenging. All his learning events are built around practical exercises, role play and case studies. His training style focuses not on just explaining new ideas or developing new skills, but also on motivating people to use them and to develop themselves as individuals. This approach gets results, as the following comments from course participants show:

‘Brilliant course, really interesting and very focused to my job role and day to day work.’

‘Took away some very good ideas that I can use every day… good examples too.’

‘Very confident in the subject, and amusing too. Made the course very interesting. A very clear sales model to use going forward.’

‘Full of useful hints and tips which I will apply to my job.’

‘Extremely well presented and structured’

‘A very intensive course and a lot of concrete tools provided.’

‘Useful data, tools and insights; engaging and interesting as always.’

‘Very good… contained everything we do on a regular basis and problems we have come across… the exercises made it very interesting too.’

1 Online marketing – what works!

  • Workshop overview and learning objectives
  • Choosing your social media channels
  • LinkedIn for sales and marketing
  • Designing and implementing an effective new business email campaign online
  • Creating a lead-generation strategy online – with case studies
  • Avoiding common mistakes in social media marketing
  • Case study: ‘Best practice in social media sales and marketing’
  • Using blogs and video-based marketing (eg, YouTube)
  • New trends and how to keep your finger on the ‘social media’ pulse
  • Twenty essential websites and online marketing tools

2 Making appointments by telephone

  • Planning the call, telephone techniques, integrating with email and online marketing
  • Developing a clear and consistent process to appointment-making
  • Setting and achieving the right level of telephone activity to achieve your appointment goals
  • Applying the key principles of effective prospecting and pipeline management generation, using a proven toolkit and approach
  • Overcoming the most common ‘put-offs’ to seeing or engaging with you
  • Overcoming psychological blocks to cold or warm calling – yours and the client’s
  • Identifying potential prospects – and decision-makers and influencers within target prospects – with greater accuracy
  • Making outbound sales or appointment calls with improved confidence, control and results
  • Improving conversion of calls to appointments by using more effective questions and sales messages
  • The five keys to developing an engaging telephone voice and approaching manner

3 Power networking

  • Strategies for networking and B2B referral-based marketing
  • The importance, and different types, of networking
  • How to work a room – preparation and strategy
  • Communication dynamics in networking – the power of the listening networker
  • Assumptions when networking
  • Business networking etiquette
  • Making connections, asking for cards, contact details and referrals, gaining follow-up commitments
  • Building relationships – follow-up and follow-through

4 Developing new leads

  • Strategies for first-time sales calls
  • Gaining rapport and opening first-time and new business sales calls effectively
  • Advanced consultative selling – questioning techniques to quickly and efficiently uncover opportunities, need areas and preferences
  • Presenting your solution to a new or first-time customer – creating an enthusiastic and compelling personalised and persuasive summary of your proposal
  • Value message – differentiate your solutions clearly and accurately, with tailored value statements
  • Presenting the right initial USPs, features and benefits and making them relevant and real to the customer
  • Smart ways to position price, emphasise value and be a strong player without being the cheapest or leading on price
  • Learn and use advanced techniques to determine customer needs, value and decision-making criteria in depth on a first-time call

5 Organised persistence – CRM and prospect-tracking

  • Organised persistence – sales tracking, following up on ‘sleeping’ customers, gaining referrals, time and territory management
  • Maintaining a good database for maximising new business ROI
  • Developing a contact strategy with different types and levels of contact
  • Analysing your contact base using state-of-the-art software and tools
  • Making the most of your CRM systems and solutions
  • Understanding that your attitude makes a difference when sourcing new business
  • Setting SMART objectives for new business development and lead-generation
  • Practical exercise – setting personal development and business goals
  • Time management tips to improve daily productivity
  • New business pipeline management strategies for peak sales performance

6 Workshop summary and close

  • Practical exercise – developing your new business action plan
  • Review and feedback

Any questions? Please just give us a call on 01582 463463 – we’re here to help!