The situation

For many training companies large contracts are only gained through a tender process. A principal training consultant must identify opportunities to bid for high value prospects worth between £15k to £100k per annum. In this example the training company has had little success in getting on the first rung of the ladder and being invited to tender for a contract. On the rare occasion that they have been invited to tender they failed at the presentation stage.

So the first challenge is to get invited to tender to begin with. Once invited they must submit a detailed proposal, which is a major investment in time and resource but certainly achievable. If their proposal is accepted by the client's tender panel a supplier presentation is arranged. The second challenge for the training company is to make a winning presentation but their ability and track record in this area is poor. Three tenders were made recently and all were unsuccessful.

Your best customers value the service you provide and what they say is very powerful in persuading prospects to buy.

Our solution

There are two parts of the sales process that we would help to strengthen. The first is offering tangible proof that the company has the credentials and reputation to be invited to tender. The second part is around making sales presentations for winning tendered contracts are more impactful. We would offer the following package.

Clarify aims. Our first step would be to work with the sales professionals who have been involved in tenders previously and to identify the parts of the sales process that need strengthening. We would then provide a proposal with clear project aims and success criteria.

Reputation strategy. We would help the client to create a reputation strategy that focuses on capturing the great things customers say about the service they receive on video. The marketing plans would include video testimonials in their website and push prospects to listen to them.

Produce video customer testimonials.  We would film 8 interviews in 4 locations with the training company’s top clients. There would be 8 x 2 minute interviews, which would be edited into 16 x 30 second video sound bites. We would coordinate the filming, editing, insertion of voice-overs, company logos and captions.

Build a library of testimonials. Value for money comes from the ability to film not just several one or two minute long video clips but a library of many 30 second video clip sound bites, which can be used in a variety of ways and  for future sales campaigns. Each clip would illustrate the success of the training company’s implementation of leadership, team working and change management. In this example we would produce 24 clips.

Training for business development professionals. In order to support the reputation strategy mentioned above we would design and deliver a 3 hour sales training session with the opportunity for delegates to practice challenging sales conversations through role plays with actors. The training will help delegates to use testimonials in the sales process especially in making sales presentations more impactful.

Promoting a reputation. We would produce 150 DVDs or memory sticks containing promotional video customer testimonials. These would be sent to prospect clients who are likely to issue an invitation to tender in a few months time.

Uploading. Video clips would be uploaded to the training company’s website and we would manage the process saving the training company time, money and resource.

End result

We would have successfully strengthened the company's capability to promote their reputation to target prospects and to improve the impact of their sales presentations. The above project would cost in the region of £5,775 plus VAT.

The situation

A pharmaceutical company has recently moved into the drug discovery market sector and their business development managers are tasked with finding new prospects, persuading them to buy and keeping them loyal through excellent customer service.

With a launch into a relatively new market sector raising the company's profile and reputation is essential for laying the foundation for sales activity. Prospect customers must know and trust the service that the company can provide.

Business development managers are selling a complex drug discovery service with a long period between finding a prospect and converting them into paying customers, up to two years in some cases.

The recommendation of someone else still remains the most trusted source of information needed for people to have before they decide to buy.

Our solution

We would propose a testimonial strategy that helps to raise the company's reputation through online marketing and video testimonials. The strategy would also highlight training plans aimed at improving business development managers' skills in using testimonials in the sales process. The training would also give them an opportunity to practice challenging sales conversations with role play actors.

Video testimonial production would comprise two customer interviews at each of their two offices. From each video interview we would produce one three minute case study video clip and from that footage we would produce eight video clip sound bites of 30 seconds duration. A total of 12 video clips.

Pricing would be based on two days for filming and two days for editing. We would convert the videos into flash files for uploading to the client's website and into windows media player files for powerpoint presentations.

We would agree some success measures for the project, which include the following areas.

End result

The client would have a testimonial strategy to support the marketing plans for raising the company's profile and reputation. The business development managers would use testimonials effectively in persuading prospects to buy and to speed up conversion from prospects to clients.

So for a total library of 12 video clips the client would pay in the region of £2,700 plus VAT.