​Animate your salesforce for growth

You want to be sure that your next sales network event (or webinar, video series...) drives more sales.
You are a sales director, head of distribution / indirect sales, head of sales support. You are responsible for sales through your salesforce or via channels with partners (​alliance, distributor, reseller, and retail). Your team develops the motivation, knowledge and skills of the salesforce and partners with events, presentations, webinars, product trainings...
You want to reach your sales target. You have invested time and money over the years to build a strong image and relationship with your salesforce or distribution partners. You want to be sure that your next event (or webinar, video series...) drives more sales. You want the presentations to flow like one big presentation, the speakers to speak as one team, the messages to re-enforce one key message.
You are likely to struggle with this:
  • Some colleagues are poor speakers.
They are credible, knowledgeable experts... behind the desk. However, when speaking in public, they give a very different image. They might turn the audience away. They might damage the positive impact of the other presentations.
  • Presentations are too technical, with too many slides.
Every one of your colleagues can share their knowledge with his own logic and vocabulary. Many seem to give a guided tour of their universe unaware of what matters to the audience and what does not. Deciding what to cut away is a heavy, painful endeavour.
  • Your guiding thread and key messages don't show up.
You have chosen some key messages and a guiding thread for the event. The horrible truth is this : your colleagues can only share their knowledge and 'paste' your messages 'on top' of their presentation. They don't have the skills to root and develop a presentation from a particular point of view. It is unlikely that the audience will discover the key messages you wanted them to remember.
  • No Wow moment.
Your colleagues have a tendency to explain the products and services (Features). Explanations are hardly exciting. When trying to make it more exciting, your colleagues advertise. They sound salesy. 
The choice is yours.
Coach your speakers yourself.
When coaching the speakers themselves, my clients experience this : after two to three meetings, the tension builds up. On the one hand, the speakers feel that they are being asked too much (too much to cover, not enough time, not enough slides); on the other hand, my clients feel the speakers don't follow their guidelines and suggestions: they make changes, but no progress towards Wow moment, key messages, less technical stuff...

Get a communication agency.
A communication agency will challenge the messages from an audience perspective (expectations, reactions). They will improve the look of your slides and add 'extrinsic excitement tools' (adding videos, quiz...) to the presentations. Your speakers can feel more insecure and overloaded with more work, having to give more input, and meet more expectations, though not getting support about what to cut out or how make it less technical, more engaging... As the speakers work in parallel to the agency, their creativity is blocked by the obligation to conform to the agreed slideshow. 
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Get a speaker's coach.
Discover what a speaker's coach can do for you.
Client Case, 2018

A leading insurance company organised a roadshow for its most important distribution channel. To boost sales, of course. But this time, they had nothing new to announce! Solution? Put new faces on stage: the client service managers. Their mission: demonstrate the fantastic value the company brings to its clients. With no experience in public speaking, no sales background, could they create a Wow moment?