Working with us: methods & engagement
Want to know what it would be like to work with us - and what, in practical terms, you can expect?
We're ambitious for your growth, yet pragmatic in approach. We believe that structure creates flexibility and simplicity. And we will always focus on your goals. Clients tell us that what makes us different is
- Genuinely focusing on delivering against their goals and working flexibly to achieve results no matter what changes during the life of the relationship.
- Having a clear framework and methodology that adapts to them, not the other way round. Many have looked at the big names but found them overkill or too prescriptive and want something that's tailored to them.
- That we practice what we preach in terms of our own sales and leadership approach to develop collaborative partnerships.
Our engagement model
Simple, clear and well-defined, our engagement model enables us to cut to the chase and start making a difference quickly.
It helps us to jointly decide what you need and how best to work together to deliver against your goals, in your timescales and with the resources you have available.
All of our programmes can be delivered entirely virtually or as a blended face-to-face and virtual program.
Here's an example of how that looks in practice:
- We follow the Brinkerhoff High Performance Learning Journey methodology which creates a clear line of sight through business, performance and behavioural outcomes to the learning experience.
- You share your business goals and culture, where you are now and where you want to be.
- Using our framework, we explore what is working, what needs to change and the scope of our work together. Our services cover management and leadership development, sales, marketing & customer success models, skills & capability, processes & systems, depending on your scope and your goals.
- We define your tailored framework and mutually agree the actions needed to meet your goals.
- We tailor, deliver and embed skills training and enablement with clearly defined outcomes.
- We introduce platforms and systems, where appropriate, to operationalise and embed your sales methodology and framework. We provide tools and systems to embed consistent leadership behaviours across the business.
- We work together to deliver, measure and track progress.
- As the changes become ‘business as usual’ (and they do) we track clear outcomes and equip you to maintain and build on the momentum.
You may be surprised at how time-efficiently we can achieve this. We don't charge you to reinvent the wheel or try to put round pegs in square holes. We simply come with what we know works and help you to adapt and apply those proven practices in your businesses.
Three steps to capability
Once we have a clear, shared plan, building capability will typically follow three stages. The breadth and depth of activity will depend on the scope of our work together, from a quick and simple engagement over a few weeks to a long-term partnership. We focus on what's going to make the difference for you, drive sustainable change and build measurement in from the start.
It's been proven that a one-hit training course doesn't deliver lasting change - statistically only 1 in 6 will typically do anything different. It's like most new year's resolutions - full of good intentions and ideas, lots of initial enthusiasm but then life and old habits get in the way. We focus on building the capability, creating, embedding and reinforcing new habits and measuring progress along the way. We do that through a suite of on-demand and self-managed learning, live virtual sessions and, when appropriate, face-to-face workshops. Everything is geared towards practical, real-world application so we work on your live opportunities and real or realistic, relevant case studies that are immediately transferrable.
Prepare
- Launch the programme
- Analyse where you are and where you want to be
- Engage with key stakeholders and participants to assess needs, gain input and buy-in
- Tailor the framework, methodology and/or content
- Pin down the Improve and Perform activities
Improve
- Introduce the framework and methodology
- Train and develop your teams
- Self-directed, on-demand learning
- Interactive face-to-face workshops
- Interactive web-based workshops
- Video coaching and mentoring
- Develop and support managers to embed and reinforce new ways of working
- Coaching and mentoring
- Support activities and tools
- Introduce and train on supporting systems, tools and processes
Perform
- Ongoing coaching, mentoring and on-the-job reinforcement to strengthen performance
- Coaching support for managers
- Measurement of improvement against behavioural, performance and business goals
- 'Strengthening' activities to advance skills performance
I have no hesitation recommending Anna. If you are looking for an external perspective to your business and new ideas to streamline your sales processes, Anna's input would be invaluable to you. She is really good at breaking things down into manageable tasks that you can apply to your business to help you truly understand customer behaviours.
Anna worked with the management in our business and also with our team, all of whom really enjoyed the process and are so much better at client relationships as a result. All the work completed by Anna was adapted to our individual business positioning - with some great examples used and no question was ever considered a 'silly' one.
We learnt about qualifying tender opportunities and leads to ensure our time is well spent with the right people who could potentially open doors to the best work opportunities for us.
Following the workshops the regularly timed catch up calls kept us all accountable for the actions we agreed to.
As a business founder and owner it's not often you have the chance to learn so much from someone else - but I came away bursting with ideas and the skills to help shape the business and the way we interact with all our connections and clients going forward. Watch this space!
Rachael Wheatley
Managing Director & Founder, Waters Creative
Your choice for sales growth partner
If you're still wondering what you should be looking for in a sales training and enablement partner, get in touch to explore how we'd collaborate with you. take a look at 'Three steps to the right sales training and enablement partner' if you want an idea of the kinds of questions to ask us.
