The second edition of the salesdog session tagged “Get the sales edge with the latest sales technique” finally kicked off at about 9h00 Thursday (22nd September 2011) at the Enablis office in Rivonia with a welcome speech and address by the facilitator, this was followed by a go around introduction by delegates within the session. There was so much excitement in the air even before diving into the main contents of the day!
The first session started off with an introduction to “Active Listening” as an essential tool and an important technique within every sales engagement, participants within this session were paired into a group of “Two’s” whilst the active listening task kicks off by one member of the group starting off the conversation, and the other member listening for 5mins which after the allocated time they switched over to the other member of the group for their own part of the fun and excitement. This activity lasted for about 10mins thereafter each delegate within the group were made to interpret and summarise the whole information gathered from the engagement both verbally and non-verbally,this really proofed effective as the delegates were astonished at how useful the tool is and were quick to recognise the holistic importance of effective listening while engaging with clients. One of the delegates was forced to speak out, stating that she probably lost some crucial deals as a result of her poor listening skills, which she promised to improve on going forward.
Then comes the all awaited and much talked about “Salesdog Framework” which the whole audience waited in eagerness to catch a glimpse of and hear about. As the facilitator moved through each of the sales breeds with each of their features and characteristics, the delegates were fast to identify their breeds and some among the audience even went as far as relating each of the breeds to their organizational culture. One of the delegate gave a very interesting and captivating scenario as to how her “CEO” goes the extra mile to satisfy customers and how he keeps preaching about customer service to its staff showing to us that the organization was been steered by the Retriever breed, this was really exciting and interesting to know. This again brought more of the delegates relating their organisation to the different breeds introduced within the session. The delegates going forward were very excited knowing their breeds and how they could leverage on the varying features of the breeds, the most exciting part was when all delegates heard about the “Big Dog” and “super Mutt” they all wanted to be associated with the “Super Mutt” going by its all-encompassing features and its uniqueness when it comes to outperforming competitors within the sales space.
The concluding part within this session saw each delegate being allocated a presentation slot to the different sales breed introduced within the session, with comments being fielded from the facilitator and the audience as to how the sales pitch could be done better and additional information that should go with the presentation, the activity chain went all around receiving a high applaud from the delegates, one of the delegates commented that she would extend the framework not only to her other colleagues at work but also to her immediate family. The delegates were so excited after this session that they asked for an extension of the time allocated to the session, but unfortunately we had to move to the next session which was on “social Media” …
The “Social Media” session kicked off in the afternoon with a general introduction to the different tools used with videos on “Twitter”, “facebook”, “Linkedin” on how they could be leveraged on within growing businesses and as useful tools in enhancing sales activities within organizations. The delegates were all excited about this, the usefulness of these tools became much more clearer to the delegates when they understood that they could create a page, for instance on facebook for advertising and communicating all their product offerings to potential clients who visit their page. One of the delegate was quick to comment “ This would really save her a lot of time moving from one customer to the other trying to sell to them” at least would help reduce her itinerary for the day!! The delegates got so excited learning and understanding how to use these tools……each of the delegates were taken through the process of understanding the usefulness of discussions within forums present within certain social media tools, Linkedin was a typical case used in demonstrating this, the use of forums within linkedin also showed to delegates the inter-relation that exist between “Social Media” and the “salesdog Framework” This is amazing one of the delegates whispered……Delegates were made to see the sales breed personality in each forum member by their writing style, which could be linked to the features of each salesdog learnt within the previous session. This is really an eye opener one of the delegates commented….Videos on “Enterprise Architecture” and its application to social media was also shown to the delegates, clearly showing them how the objectives within their corporate strategy can also be achieved using the social media tools…..This is great one of the delegates commented while the videos were been showed to them.
The event finally came to an end with a wrap-up and reflection time with each delegates eliciting feedback as to the value they got from the training session and how they would put the new techniques they learnt into use in their varying businesses. Some of the delegates also requested for a bespoke in-house training for some of their managers, which really showed that the training was of world class standard and value adding to all that were present! The facilitators in person of Michael and Patrick also thanked the delegates for their time and encouraged them to start applying the new techniques and skills learnt within the session!! Some of the comments made by the delegates at the end of the training session were:
- Thank you for providing this training session, may we have more of this from time to time
- Very informative and interesting session
- Learnt a couple of new sales techniques and its applicability with the social media
- Learnt the effectiveness of active listening for a productive sales engagement , it was really educative and will be useful for my business
- Great presentation
For more information and updates as to all upcoming sales training please visit: www.phiblue.co.za
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The much talked about “Salesdog Training Seminar” put together by Phiblue and Enablis at the Microsoft office in Bryanston Johannesburg, witnessed a host of participants mostly business owners coming in from various sectors. The event was free for all Enablis members and started off at about 8.30 am on Wednesday (22nd of June), with a welcoming address and registration of participants. The training session which was anchored by Walied Allie, the managing director of Phiblue, finally kicked off by 9.00 am with the theme “Active Listening”. This saw the delegates being involved in a 3mins active listening activity which went round all participants consecutively.
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