Greenbank Bulletin

This topic is becoming the Holy Grail for many of our clients, especially in the current competitive marketplace, where all too often it seems that the power is with their buyers.  As a result, price discussions happen all too early in the sale - before the sales person has the chance to build value.  The result? Commoditisation of their services, knee jerk discounting way before the negotiation really starts and subsequent margin erosion. 

The work of Stephen Denning on storytelling in leadership suggests you need not only to structure your message carefully, but to pay attention to the personal qualities that will make your stories successful.

Denning has studied the way that leaders - political and organisational - tell stories which 'hook' their audience. In his book The Secret Language of Leadership he suggests that there are two areas you need to get right if you are to engage others successfully in the process of change.

By Greenbank's Latin America Partner, MAPA Consulting

"Honey, please wait for me in heaven and we will build our nest around cotton clouds"

The above quote was immortalized by the great Spanish Director, Pedro Almodovar, in his movie Matador. But, what is the connection with this month newsletter?

By Ian Hirst, Greenbank Partner

All Sales Directors and indeed anybody aiming to transform their company's salesforce know how difficult it can be to achieve lasting change from new sales skills training, processes and CRM implementations.  Salespeople are after all naturally skilled at getting round procedures not following them...

This paper outlines a simple, yet challenging, 7-stage model that will work if organisations are committed to success…….and frankly there is little point doing any sales training or process implementation without this..