Sales for SME: From Frustration to Flourishing

You took a plunge into what you believed is a great choice. You started this business with a very clear aim to make it the best business you could have. You are a master of your craft. You have stuck to it for many months which have turned into years. Your business has survived. It has met your needs-sometimes barely doing so. Despite many times you have felt weak you have stuck to it. Many times you are frustrated. Your biggest frustration is that the business is not generating enough money.

Why does it not generate enough money? Simple. You don’t sell enough.

You don’t have enough customers. You rely on referrals for business but they are not enough. You try selling but since this is not your area you don’t excel in it. Other times you decide to sell but shortly you find yourself caught up in the ongoing inside the business.

To mitigate this you have resulted to hiring sales people. Every time you hire you are excited but shortly after you are back where you were. The early promise doesn’t actualize and you either fire the sales person or they also give up on you and move on. You move from despair to being cynical of the sales people.

You wonder what you really need to do take to your business where it needs to be. Are there great sales people out there to help you bring the sales you badly want? Is there one or two tricks you don’t know about that could make sales come through? Is there something wrong with you that make your business not to sell? Are you doing anything wrong?  You wonder.

Maybe you should stop wondering and consider the following:

• Are you approaching sales in a strategic way? Ways that ensure you have a continuous flow of opportunities rather than day to day pursuit of the opportunity that arises.
• Is your business marketing oriented? Is everything you do marketing?
• Is your business designed for effective sales and marketing?
• Do you engage in soft sales efforts?
• How well are you doing as the chief sales officer of your business?
• How well are you enabling your customers to give you great referrals?
• Do you know the real value of your customers and how well are you harvesting this value?
• How well equipped are you to manage sales people in your business?
• How well are you leveraging all the assets in your business to acquire and convert leads?
• How good is your business in getting customers are make repeat purchases?
• How have you proofed your business from the seasonality experienced in your industry?

These are just a few of the questions you need to answer to have a clarity on what you need to do to turn around your sales fortunes. In Growth Partners we have over 233 of such questions. By answering them you are half way through addressing your sales challenges.

After answering these questions you need to craft solutions to deficiencies uncovered as you answered the questions. Some of the solutions are easy and straight forward. However, there are areas that requires sales expertise to design the solutions.

We have put together a 2 Day Workshop specifically tailored for business owners designed to help you overcome your sales struggles and put your sales on autopilot (or something like that). It is for people who run any form of business ranging from restaurants to software companies, retail business to medical clinics, clothing shops to cake bakeries, legal firms to manufacturing ventures, real estate merchants to wholesalers, management consulting to furniture shops, bars to food processors. Simply it is a workshop for everyone who is either frustrated by the sales revenues they get from their business or would love to take their business to hire levels.

From the workshop we want to show you how to generate continuous flow of business, give you sales performance strategies that require minimal resources to execute, answer your hard questions in relation to sales, give you easy to use tools to manage your sales and sales employees, challenge you to optimize various aspects of your business so that you can get highest returns from your sales and marketing efforts and investments, show you hidden opportunities in your business that you have never thought your business had.

The workshop is scheduled for December 1^st and 2^nd 2016. This will help you as you leave for the holidays to have a lot of food for thought. Ideas that you will put in place in the New Year. Tactics that you will refine as you rest ready to take up the New Year with a band.

We are offering the workshop for Kshs 18,750.00 as you will be sharing the cost with other participants. But you can have the workshop facilitated in-house for Kshs 76,750.00 plus you cater for venue costs.

This could be the best holiday gift you can give yourself because it will make you money. One client who went through this workshop in-house has generated business worth 3 times of the investment from implementing 2 of the ideas generated from the course. This is in spite of her being a highly sales averse entrepreneur. If she could do so I believe you can do the same or even more.

The workshop will be facilitated by Sam Kariuki. Sam is the author of the highly acclaimed business novel ‘The Guy Who Fired His Boss’. In the last 7 Years Sam has helped tens of businesses become well in sales and sales management. He has trained thousands of sales people across East Africa. If it is a sales challenge, Sam has dealt with it.

To enroll for the workshop contact Kendi at kendi@growthpartners.co.ke

Stellar Selling for Real Estate Sales Professionals Workshop

at The Nairobi Safari Club

on October 27th-28th 2016

 Book 3 Get 1 Free

For a great majority of people real estate purchases are the biggest purchases they will ever make and hence most important. They therefore need to be handled by the finest sales professional so as to get the deal to the line as well as feel satisfied and happy of the buying process and the purchase decision.

That is why sales people who are weak in essential selling qualities and competencies consistently lose out on deals which they were surefire when they started leading to very low closing rates of inquiries.

The Stellar Selling for Real Estate course is designed to equip the sales people with skills that will help them to sell more of the properties, to as many qualified customers as often as they are awake and selling. It converts the sales person from a ‘shower’ of a house, apartment, office or land to a persuasive and trusted expert seller of real estate products who gets the customer enthused to make the purchase.

This course is not for those who are just holding a sales job waiting for the next good opportunity but for people who want to be the highest performers in the industry.

This is the only sales course designed specifically to those in the real estate industry. It addresses unique aspects of the market and real estate products.

Course Objectives

After attending this course the sales person  will:

1. Experience increase in the number and value of their sales;
2. Be more persuasive even to the most difficult customers;
3. Understand the various types of customers, their buying behavior and how to manage each of the type;
4. Delight customers by managing their psychological expectations;
5. See deals move faster to positive closure;
6. Overcome customer objections and fears that make them hesitate to commit;
7. Have tools and processes for structured follow-up and relationship building;
8. Easily understand customer buying criteria including the unspoken needs and requirements;
9. Communicate property values in a way that match the buyers needs;
10. Have methods for qualifying leads and managing them through the various stages of purchase decision.

After the course the sales people will be highly motivated, equipped with key skills for selling real estate properties and have methodologies and approaches to effectively engage many clients to achieve desired sales targets.

Course Content

The course covers the following subjects

Module 1: The Real Estate Market

• Opportunities and Challenges
• The Ideal Customer
•  Traditional Selling Approach
•  Emerging Trends

Module 2: The Property Buyer

• Customer Profiling
• What they buy
• How they buy
• Buying Decision Criteria

Module 3: The Property Sales Star

• Stellar Sales Image
• Connection Faction
• Body Language of Selling

Module 4: How to Get Clients

• Richest Sources of Customers
• Targeting Best Buyers
• Generating High Potential Leads
• Getting Customers to Call You
• Leveraging on the internet
• Prospect Qualification

Module 5: Art of Property Selling

• Property Talking Points
• Persuading like a Pro
• Persuading with Stories
• Creating Value

Module 6:  Essential Property Selling Skills

• Rapport Building
• Relational Intelligence
• Understanding Customer Buying Criteria
• Closing
• Negotiation Skills

Module 6: Opportunity Management

• Critical Selling Activities
• Understanding the Business Pipeline
• Mastering the Sales Milestones
• Speeding Up the Sales Cycle
• Improving Prospect Conversion
• Increasing Deal Size

Active Learning Delivery Methodology

This is not an academic course. This is a hands on course that uses over 15 learning methodologies which you ensure you learn by hearing, seeing,  teaching, asking  and doing. Lectures don’t last more than 10 minutes. Throughout the course you are 100% engaged in a learning activity.

 The Trainer: 

Sam Kariuki -Author, Sales Expert, Business Strategist

Sam Kariuki is a sales expert who has been delivering sales training programmes for over 10years first through Marketing Society of Kenya and in the last 7years through Growth Partners. Sam will be among the top 3 finest sales trainers in the market today. Those who have gone through his courses have experienced improvement in the sales performance. Sam has trained sales people and their managers  across tens of industries and types of businesses. He is often sought out to train in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. 

Sam has had his works on sales, marketing and business strategy published in Selling Power, Business Daily, Marketing Africa among other publications. He often appears on TV speaking about business growth. He is the author of the book, The Guy Who Fired His Boss.
 

 Dates & Venue

The Course will be held at the Nairobi Safari Club on the October 27th-28th 2016.

Investment

The investment for this course is Kshs 29,990 per participant.

Book in 3 participants get the 4^th one for free.

Booking
To make your booking contact Kendi on 0208012627, 0711671843 or kendi@growthpartners.co.ke

Ways to fall in-love with the customer

• Learn from the Customers: Be a good listener.
• Make yourself accessible: Always be there.
• Be proactive: Avoid break up.
• value your customers: Treat them they are your first
• Strive for moments of Awesome: Become unforgettable.

Champions Made in Kenya

Lessons for Sales People from World Conquering Athletes

Are Kenyan runners born or made? This is a question that intrigues those who follow Kenya’s dominance in long distance running. Kenya has produced more world champions and Olympic medalists in mid to long distance running than any other nation on face of earth. Most of these athletes come from the Rift Valley Province of the country. There has been a raging debate where the people of Rift Valley are genetically designed to be world beaters or it is the environment that has made them world beaters or maybe something to do with their diet.

But regardless of where you come from in Rift Valley to beat the world at the biggest stage you need to practice at a place called Iten. It is a place that athletes spend weeks and months preparing to compete with Kenyans. Why are they coming here? Altitude? Diet ? What is the secret  magic  of Iten ?

One of the most important aspects of Iten is its concentration of world beaters. It is a place where even the Kenya greats who don’t come from Rift Valley Camp in their pursuit of a dream to beat the world. Some of the non Kenyan World Stars who have trained here are Mo Farah and Paula Radcliffe from United Kingdom, Uganda’s Stephen Kiprotich among others.

Iten is the Silicon Valley for mid to long distance runners. 

Why would I write about this region in a sales article? Because there is a lot we can learn about sales from long distance running. The main reason is that to become a super star in whichever field you need to spend time with super stars. If you want to fly high then you need to spend time with eagles not chicken.

1.          The first step of winning  is spending time with those seeking to be winners

The reason many foreign athletes come to Iten is to practice with the Kenyan super stars. They want to do what they see Kenyans do. But most importantly they want to be consumed by that passion for winning that burns in the Kenyan runners. When this passion consumes you, you will want to pursue the goals that champions want to pursue. You will want to do whatever they do to win.

When you spend time with people aiming to exceed their quotas, break records and win trophies you are likely to start desiring the same.

 If you want to become a sales super star you need to have the passion and drive of those who consistently win.  You need to care about things they care about; you need to start feeling how enjoyable winning is. For ordinary runners they won’t be bothered to reduce their time by a second. For champions a fraction of a second becomes an obsession. They know records are set and broken not by minutes by fractions of a second.

2.       Practicing with Champions Stretches you out of the Comfort Zone

If you ran with those who have consistently beaten the world, even if you don’t become a world beater, you are likely to perform beyond what you thought your physical abilities and skills could allow. You will be pushed to endure more than what ordinary people would care about.

You will be forced to run longer distances. Your muscles will be stretched to points they are sore. You will wake up earlier. You will not be allowed to enjoy pizzas and fries. This ultimately sets you at a higher level than you were before you started practicing with the champions.

As a sales person you need the same. You need to spend time with those who put you in a position where you can stretch yourself beyond what is comfortable.

3.       Spending time with world beaters shapes our beliefs

Those who have grown seeing champions practicing and bringing troves of medals year in year out have had beliefs about what is possible. Those who go to Iten believe that if you can beat Iten you can beat the world.

In Iten you meet many people who believe they can set new records, beat the world finest and achieve greatness in the world athletics. You meet young men and women practicing without shoes with a belief that they will shine at the world’s biggest stage and pull themselves out of poverty. They have seen hundreds of others do that and therefore it is not hard for them to believe the same.

Ordinary people have ordinary beliefs, champions have beliefs of champions. Sales Super stars have beliefs of super stars while ordinary sales people have beliefs of ordinary mortals. When you spend time with super stars your ordinary beliefs are altered sometimes forever.

Being there seeing champions practicing, feeling pain, being human demystify the champion as a super being. When you discover that the champions are beings like you then you start believing you can become like them. If you keep pace with them in the practice then you believe you can do the same in the real race. That is how many pace setters from Kenya upstage the stars they were supposed to set pace for.

4.       Spending time with champions allows you to model their behaviors

Sometimes you don’t need to read books on what the successful people do and the philosophy behind their success, you just need to watch them go about their journey of success. Watch what they do and do it exactly as they do it and you are likely to achieve the same results they achieve.

As a sales person you need to watch and model the behaviors of the super stars and you are more likely to get the same results they get. Wake up the same time they wake up, prepare for a call the same way they do, plan your route the same way, build rapport as they do, show care for customer as they do, follow the same steps in making the presentation, eat the same meal etc and you will get the same results.

Iten is a great place for long distance runners to spend time and prepare to become champions, but not necessarily a place where sales super stars are made but form its story we can learn a lot on how to become sale superstars.  But you don’t need to travel to Iten to be at Iten. Iten can be a place in your organization or city where you can meet the sales champions. It can be a biography that you read, or a grouping of super achievers you spend time with. 

Sam Kariuki is a sales trainer and strategist based in Kenya. He is theauthor of The Guy Who Fired His Boss, a business novel on how to turn an idea into a business.

You Do Not Plough With A Peacock

Mercy was employed as an accountant by one of our clients. She had been good at her work but over time her performance has been deteriorating. She was put on performance notice. She had given up on her fate in the organization until one time her boss gave me a call. She asked me to administer our psychometric tests on her.

It is through our two tests that we had helped the organization hire it's 3 top sales people in the last 2 years. Mercy was not impressed by the fact that she was being asked to take some tests that she knew her sales colleagues had taken. She had been a trained accountant. She did not have anything to lose except some 45 minutes to do the test.

Once the tests were completed we sent the report to her boss. Mercy was a lion. Among the three sales people we had hired one of them was a lion while the other two were horses. (We have 21 animals that represent different personalities). The boss was not shocked. She was also a lion and that is what frustrated her so much about Mercy. She knew she could work and get the results.

We had a meeting where we presented the report to Mercy and her boss and made a suggestion that probably it would be good idea if Mercy moved from accounts into account relations management role. In accounts she worked a lot with paper work and was expected to stick to a routine. As a lion this was not easy. She got motivated by tangible achievements and pursuing goals. She enjoyed taking leadership roles and taking up challenging roles. All these were available in the account management role.

Within a month Mercy had started bringing in orders from previously dormant accounts. She was the employee of the month. She was not yet the top sales person but she was so committed to becoming one within the next six months.

Mercy is like many other employees. People who could be easily described as role pegs fitted into square holes. They hold onto a job because of the paycheck. There performance is ok due to sheer commitment but in many cases they will never be spectacular in the job. Their position or role does not utilize their strengths. If you have a hunting position you don’t use a sheep for it, get a lion.

There are other employees who never get to know themselves and as a result try to fit into a mold they suppose is expected of them. They are copies of others rather than the best original of themselves. Self awareness is probably the most important element in emotional intelligence. When we are aware of our qualities we are able to turn them into strengths and be aware of them when they are our blind spots in the roles that we have. We get to know why we do things the way we do them and how that impacts the results we get as well as how we relate with others either as colleagues subordinates and bosses.

When filling a role it is sometimes to try creating the profile of the candidate that will best in a position and pursue that candidate. Other times it has been found that candidates of a particular personality type fit in a certain organization while another might struggle. This is because built in an organizations culture is its personality. That is one reason why an employee who was a super star performer in an organization struggles in a similar role in another organization and vice versa. It is synonymous in having a peacock amongst plough bulls or a hare among German Shepherds.

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Email: info@growthpartners.co.ke or Call +254 20 8012627 to book your spot

STRATEGIC SELLING SKILLS COURSE

Win More Business, More Often from Large Companies, Multi Nationals, NGOs and Public Sector Institutions 

Faced with customers who are more demanding more value at lower prices, competitors who are more vicious and  a market that is seeking to commoditize every value, today’s sales person needs to be more strategic in his/her approach to win more clients, close more sales and protect their customers from the competition.

Strategic Selling Skills Course has been designed to equip sales people with essential skills, techniques, tools and strategies to thrive and excel in this environment.

Sales person who is armored with right weapons will outperform every other sales person who is not well equipped.

Course Objectives:

The course is designed and delivered, to equip the sales people with the skills, tools, strategies and  tactics to accomplish the following:

1.Close more profitable and large sales to achieve company and personal sales goals;

2.Generate and develop high potential  sales opportunities;

3.Overcome fear of talking to key decision makers large prospects and clients;

4.Create, manage and nurture relationships that would open up new opportunities and get sales closed;

5.Build and manage an ever rich business pipeline with opportunities that convert;

6.Unlock various obstacles that are thrown in the way of making a big sale;

7. Adopt a sales approach that is consistent with their personality strengths while utilizing other tools to manage around personality weaknesses;

8. Aggressively and tactically follow-up of high value opportunities;

9. Be results focused  in planning and execution of their sales calls and meetings;

10.Make winning  presentations to decision makers;

11.Carry out persuasive sales conversations with senior executives;

12.Initiate and manage relationships with quality prospects who are easy to convert into customers.

Course Content

The course will be covered as follows:

Module	Content
Pipeline Management	Customer Profiling Lead Generation Strategies Prospect Qualification Prospect Nurturing Follow-Up Management
Consultative Selling	The Consultative Process Effective Presentations Objection Handling Closing Mastery
Sales Communications	Effective Presentations Nonverbal Communication Sales Conversations Persuasion Strategies
Selling to Large Organizations	Tactical Vs Strategic Selling Value Design Buyer Influences
C-Level Selling	What CEOs Want Conversations that Win CEOs Managing CEO Relationships
High Value Client Relationships	From a Customer to a Client Lifetime Value of a Customer Customer Relationship Model Techniques for Growing Customer Relationship
Leveraging your Sales Personality Strengths	Know your Sales Personality Discover your Sales Strengths Putting Your Strengths to Work Managing Sales Personality Weaknesses

 Investment

Investment: KES 28,500 +VAT per Participant

Venue

The Nairobi Safari Club

Date

September 8th & 9th 2016

Lead Facilitator

Sam Kariuki- Course Designer & Lead Facilitator

Sam Kariuki is a sales strategist and business growth consultant. He helps set up high performance sales organizations, develop sales growth strategies, design scalable business models, identify and remove sales growth constraints and trains business owners, managers and sales staff on ways to effectively grow revenues, open new markets, acquire new customers and multiply value from existing customers.

Sam has developed various tools that help businesses hire top sales producers and develop existing ones to achieve set targets.

Sam has over 10 years’ experience in sales training, sales recruitment and business advisory. He has trained and consulted for various blue chip companies, Small & Mid Sized Businesses and International Development Organizations across East Africa. Organizations that have engaged Sam have developed new revenue streams, experienced increased sales, developed professional sales teams and increased returns on their sales and marketing expenditure.

He the author of the highly acclaimed novel The Guy Who Fired His Boss, which is a book showing how to evaluate a business idea, design it into a business and build a successful business venture. He has contributed articles to various business publications including Business Daily, Marketing Africa, and Selling Power East Africa among others.

He holds various qualifications including a Degree in Marketing from University of Nairobi and Executive Diploma in Marketing from Marketing Society of Kenya.

<sup>Registration

To Register for the course contact Kendi 

Tel: +254 20 801 26 27 
Cell: +254 711 671 843
        +254 772 12 52 79</sup> 
Email: kendi@growthpartners.co.ke