Work
A few examples of deliverables and impact.Online Skills Delivery
Adapt and modify Negotiation teaching for on-line, asynchronous delivery to more than 10,000 sellers worldwide. Business impact: attendees learn how to improve each ongoing negotiation, while cost/attendee of the skills transfer drops by 99% versus classroom-style delivery.
Client reaction: “Tim, I really like the module. It’s one of the few (perhaps the only one) that is truly evergreen. It is easy to see that a Seller will return to it for a refresh, clarification, remediation. Each topic can truly stand on its own so that the Seller can get that ‘just in time’ learning experience. The FAQ and Handbook are invaluable tools that will live on long after the Seller stops returning to the module. Thank you for all of hard work and excellent contributions to making this module exceptional.”
(Performed in partnership with my client, and Drury Design)
An expensive mistake avoided
I was analyzing a final negotiation strategy when my Client’s lead devised a “surprise” strategy for dealing with procurement; “Let’s offer them a 3% greater discount than they expect to get! They’ll sign right away!” His goal was to shorten the time to signing. In fact, the 3% gain would become the new starting point for this, and every future negotiation. It would likely prolong the close date even further into the future (and be expensive!). An expensive mistake avoided.
Providing a road map
Often, business deals are complex – too complex for less-experienced sellers, who think that all sales problems are resolved by lower prices. So, my delivery of a simple, repeatable, 4-step negotiation process to 40 sellers, including how to execute the steps against the opportunities they were currently working on, was a powerful simplification.
Business impact: Immediate negotiation posture improvements of $6 million (US, estimated by attendees) in seller opportunities, plus improved skills for future opportunities.
Client reaction: “Thank You for the most successful … negotiations workshop ever. We really hit the mark; I know you, along with us, saw the light bulbs coming on. …When you said you were going to make the sellers work hard throughout the day, you weren’t kidding – but it was worth the payoff.”
Sometimes you need a road map.
New Methods: as part of continually improving skills and my Clients’ business outcomes, the creation of new methods and tools is an important task. A few examples are shown below:
Assessing Business Value
Research, combined with real-world experience, has demonstrated that Business Value to your client can be assessed by 5 key parameters, and that your understanding and articulation against those standards will impact profit, time to close, odds of winning, client satisfaction and more.
I created a tool to measure status, establish actions to take to improve it, compare opportunities and more. The tool has been adopted (and adapted) by large clients around the world.
Identifying action alternatives
Clients will delay. A simple method of identifying if they will and why is powerful. Combined with an assessment of personal styles, it will allow you to influence your outcomes.
A tremendous number of sales opportunities are lost to “I’ll wait – I don’t need to decide right now.”
What are my options? What happens if I choose each of them? A decision tool for buyers and sellers both.
When will the decision be made?
Many people are sensitive to “when”. Most of them confuse some external reason (e.g. sellers end-of-period pressure) with the actual date that a decision will be made.
A simple method for analyzing the factors that go into a decision date – sometimes they can be influenced, sometimes not. But knowing either of these facts is important to the strategic decision process.