Winning business with Strategy Sessions COACH BRIEF

Winning business with Strategy Sessions COACH BRIEF

Overview Strategy Sessions enable prospects to focus on what can really make a difference to them and their business, and will give them first-hand experience of the value of your service. They will view your leadership coaching as the solution they ve been looking for, and will leave wanting more. This won t just happen because you turn up at their offices. You need to prepare yourself and your prospects properly prior to the meeting. You then need to deliver a tightly focused, high-value session. Finally, it is essential to report back on the session, to underscore and maximise its value to your prospects, and to provide a natural point at the end of the Report-Back to engage them in a sales conversation. At Accelerated Success we have made Strategy Sessions central to our marketing. Sure, they are time consuming, but they are really no more work than the marketing activity we used to do. Because the sessions are so targeted, we wind up spending more time with fewer but far better prospects. In turn, they win us a lot of future business. Also, these sessions are enjoyable and rewarding to deliver. What s not to like? Through Strategy Sessions you help prospective clients dig down into the problems they face and the outcomes they want. When to use Strategy Sessions You can offer free Strategy Sessions whenever you think you have a genuine prospect. At Accelerated Success we meet with existing clients to cultivate further business, we ask who else on their team might benefit from our coaching, and suggest a Strategy Session for anyone they identify. After 1

delivering the sessions, we report back to the original clients. This method also helps them in planning and decision making around leadership development they know our coaching makes a real and positive difference to business results, and Strategy Sessions are a great way of helping them see where else in their business they can use it. When cultivating business from existing clients in this way: o Over 90 percent of leaders to whom we offered a Strategy Session accepted. o Of these, over 90 percent said yes to a full coaching programme for themselves and / or members of their team. Where we think existing clients can refer us to one or more of their colleagues, we ask them to make the introduction via an email that briefly explains the value our leadership coaching has brought to their business. We follow up and arrange a first contact meeting, at which we offer potential clients a Strategy Session as a next step. With referrals from existing clients to colleagues in other parts of the same company: o Over 50 percent accepted our offer of a Strategy Session o Of those who accepted, over 90 percent commissioned a full coaching programme for themselves and / or members of their team With referrals from existing clients to contacts in other companies, we target only a few in any one year. So far, 100 percent of the external referrals we have targeted have accepted a Strategy Session. Of those, one in three has become a long-term client. 2

Getting started with Strategy Sessions When getting started with Strategy Sessions we suggest just jumping straight in. Why not ask past or existing clients to help you try out a new leadershipcoaching tool free of charge? You can explain that by participating they will get a clearer understanding of how they can add most value in their role, and that it will help you gain the practical experience of using this approach. Learning to conduct Strategy Sessions this way does not put the same pressure on you as in a live marketing situation. You might even win new business from it! That s how we started using Strategy Sessions at Accelerated Success. We asked a small number of existing clients if they would help us road test a new leadership-coaching tool. We got practice using Strategy Sessions, and it helped us think about the sort of leaders we wanted to work with. An unexpected benefit of this exercise was that we even won some business! One of the leaders we worked with got so much value out of this practice session, he commissioned a full leadership-coaching programme for himself. Preparing for Strategy Sessions In preparation for a Strategy Session, send your prospect brief information about the purpose and structure of the session and about your leadership coaching services. (If you have an article or information sheet, send one or both.) In addition, the crucial bit of currency to send them at this point is a preparatory questionnaire that they complete and return to you prior to the session. It should take them 20-30 minutes to complete. Completing the questionnaire helps them think in detail about their business vision, and the challenges they face and what they need to get better at to achieve it. Reading their responses also 3

enables you, the coach, to understand more about their situation and plan how to deliver the session. Without this questionnaire, you risk wasting a lot of time in the session itself gathering information, rather than drilling down and enabling participants to gain genuine insight and understanding about their business. The questions we use at Accelerated Success are: 1. What's the purpose of your part of the business? 2. Describe how you fit into the organisation, including who you report to, the size of your team, and budget / revenue generation responsibilities. 3. What s your vision for your part of the business? 4. What are your key objectives for the next 12-18 months? 5. What are the 3 or 4 most important and challenging areas of your role in fully achieving these objectives? 6. What would it be most important for you to get better at, to significantly improve performance in these areas? Try to select something that will extend your capability as a leader / key player, rather than something technical you can accomplish by learning a new skill. Other advantages of using a pre-session questionnaire are that it takes the pressure off both of you in the Strategy Session participants know a bit about what to expect, and you have more control over how the session unfolds. It also shows that you know what you re doing you have a clear and professional process that they can engage with, reducing any anxieties they might have and helping to build trust. Delivering Strategy Sessions Now comes the bit where you should be the most comfortable and confident. It s coaching! 4

Explain that you want to go through their responses from the questionnaire and ask them further questions to really understand their work situation. Get them to explain in more detail what they mean in each of their written responses. Take notes as you go for putting together the Strategy Session report. 1. What's the purpose of your part of the business? Tell me more. 2. Describe how you fit into the organisation, including who you report to, the size of your team, and budget / revenue generation responsibilities. Tell me more. 3. What s your vision for your part of the business? Tell me more. What s important to you in your work? 4. What are your key objectives for the next 12-18 months? Tell me more about each objective in turn. 5. What are the 3 or 4 most important and challenging areas of your role in fully achieving these objectives? Tell me more about each area in turn. 6. What would it be most important for you to get better at, to significantly improve performance in these areas? Try to select something that will extend your capability as a leader / key player, rather than something technical you can accomplish by learning a new skill. Coach asks about what participant needs to get better at in each challenging area in turn, starting with the most important: What s the one area, that if you made significant gains here, it would be a big deal for you personally and add value to the business? Tell me more about this. 5

Coach digs into participant s PAIN: How do you know this is a problem? What are the visible effects of this problem in the business? If you don t get better in this area, what happens? And then what happens? And what does that affect? Coach helps participant visualize the GAIN: What would getting better in this area allow YOU to do, which you can t do today? Where do the benefits of being able to do this show up? What will it allow the business to do, which it can t do today? Where do the benefits of the business being able to do this show up? Coach focuses participant on the VALUE of making change: What s the value of addressing this area? What is the ultimate gain for you? Your team? Your line manager? The wider business? Your customers? Coach reconnects participant with the situation now: What has stopped you and / or the business from addressing this area before? Where are you on a scale of 1-10, where 10 means it is critical that you address this area and 1 is the opposite? 6

Closing the Strategy Session Keep to your agenda. You must leave time to tell prospects more about your leadership coaching services. Not TOO much more, but they will need to know something about what your coaching can help them achieve, and the structure and timing of a coaching programme. You also need to deal with their questions and discuss any limitations or concerns they have about participating in a full coaching programme. For example, most will want to know how much such a programme will cost, if they haven t already asked. Be as clear as you can, and don t start offering a discount before you ve even got their reaction to the price. Finally, always schedule the Report-Back session before you close the Strategy Session. Where possible make the Report-Back a 3-way meeting involving the participant, their line manager and you. This may not always be possible but, where it is, it helps you get buy-in from and build relationships with the key stakeholders in the coaching programme, and establish clear lines of communication. This maximises your chances of selling a full programme. I hope you found this coach brief helpful. For more know-how and resources on growing your coaching practice sign up to our blog, Blue Chip Tips, at: http://info.bluechipcoaching.co.uk/blog And I d also be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn. Just go to the link below and click Connect, Friend and Send. https://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-oubridge/18/673/5a2 ENJOY YOUR MARKETING! 7