- Summary of articles
- Leadership is creating a world to which people want to belong
- Do you really know your organisation's world?
- Managing as a creator of Worlds
- Create sales contacts through your breakfasts
- Mergers
- Create a dynamic vision, keystone of your Desired World
- Secrets of CEOs/salespeople out to conquer your Market World!
Create sales contacts through your breakfasts
Bringing your world closer to that of your client means in the very first instance making contact with him. Organisers of and participants in breakfasts often pretend to be satisfied with their breakfasts.
- the organiser: "there were lots of people, the participants seemed happy".
- the participant: "I learned two or three things … I discovered this obscure museum".
Reality does not agree with them: no result.
Seen from the organiser’s side, few if any projects are initiated on the strength of a breakfast.
Seen from the participant’s side, they come out of it with greasier hands than when they went in (because of the buttery pastries of course).
Unfortunate coincidence? No, rather the result of a series of avoidable errors.
Don’t deceive yourself about the aim of the breakfast
What is your aim?
- Answer A: make an image
- Answer B: show your references and credibility on the subject by describing successful projects
- Answer C: sell
- Answer D: initiate a sales process
Make an image?
It can’t do any harm. But a breakfast is an above price method, given the weak target - hire, supplies, invitations, follow-up, mobilisation of your company, mobilisation of outside contributors – for 10, 20... 50 participants ... most of whom are not VITOs – Very Important Top Officers - (because the VITOs to whom you sent these invitations sent them to N-1, who themselves...)
Show our references and credibility on the subject by describing successful projects?
What about it? Describing your projects often leads to long, boring presentations, with no differentiation, and which do not produce any results with your guests. You will have bored them, you will have given them know-how for free and with no recognition expected in return. You might reply, “yes, but they will register that we are pros on the subject”. Yes, but were they in any doubt in the first place? And then, aren’t your competitors just as much pros as you? So, what is the result?
Sell?
Dream on. You are not at a Tupperware meeting, your sales cycles are much more complex.
Initiate a sales process?
Is that your final answer? Yes, Chris. A breakfast should initiate a sales process. Of course, that’s the aim of a breakfast! What does that mean? How do we put this aim into practice?
In a complex sale dynamic, you set out with a considerable head start on your competitors if you are present at the creation of the idea with the client.
You must be the provider who “crystallises this idea” with a VITO of the client, i.e. suggesting to him the right idea that will be a business opportunity for him. A breakfast is an excellent way of generating these ideas.
Choose your IDEA carefully
The subject involved must be able to lead to a “crystallisable” idea. The only crystallisable ideas are ideas that correspond to PAINS. Pains that decision-makers are aware of, or pains that it is possible to reveal. Do like your dentist: he has no problem getting you to his breakfasts because you are in pain or afraid of being in pain.
A crystallisable pain must be large, urgent and profitable to treat. If these pains are still weak signals in the heads of your guests and especially of their VITOs, be the one to help them turn them into strong signals then into projects (risk of doing nothing, more effective decisions, errors to avoid, opportunities to seize, etc.).
Beware of subjects or wordings that do not capitalise on a pain or that are vague: "sustainable development, myth or reality", "CRM, successful projects", "how to create new synergy for the benefit of brand equity?", "the increase in paradoxes and antagonisms in major companies".
Do not think that you will only have VITOs … make do, however.
Vitos are very difficult to muster, unless you announce to them the simultaneous arrival of Bill Gates, Shimon Pérès, Lara Croft and Pope Benedict XVI. Consider that at best you will only have N-1 decision-makers and probably N-2s and even N-3s.
How do you resolve this paradox? You cannot count on the presence of VITOs, but however it is with them as a priority that you must crystallise ideas.
- Answer A: N-2s alone will relay these ideas to their VITOs
- Answer B: let’s crystallise the ideas with the N-2s
- Answer C: let’s give up breakfasts
- Answer D: let’s use N-2s as a springboard to access VITOs
I appeal to the public…Answer D, Chris. The whole art of the breakfast, from open to close, consists in making your guests want to give you access to their VITOs, or even in gently encouraging this wish.
Do a launch to attract interest, explaining clearly to your guests where you are leading them.
A good launch: "You are here because you are asking yourself the question ..., the aim of this breakfast is to help you decide whether your company should launch a project on ...".
In other words, you must locate them in a rationale of reflection-action: "in 2 hours’ time, you will have visualised whether you are concerned with the following issue ... and understood how you can make your company reflect on the corresponding project".
You can also get your audience to talk on the basis of a question of the type "what concerns do you have on the subject that justify your decision to devote 2 hours of your time to it?".
Do not stray far from your aim: initiating the crystallisation of an idea
In your presentation, curb your tendencies to present methodologies with no aim in the context of a breakfast, studies that are simply intellectual tourism, success stories that serve only to value the organiser or its client.
Also frame client testimonials to avoid the same syndromes.
If P-VAL helps you to prepare one of your high-stake breakfasts, we will help you use the equation P x S x E > R. The P is for "Pain". The "P" without the "S" and without the "E" will not produce the expected result.
Check the impact
Traditional breakfasts are weak on one of the major expectations of participants: networking. Pace your breakfast with Q&A sessions, which give an opportunity to create a training effect with participants.
Be sure to frame questions and answers so that they do not stray from your sole objective – crystallising ideas.
Make closings that call to action
There’s nothing worse than breakfasts that end with "thank you for coming, I hope we have answered all your questions, do not hesitate to get in touch if you require any further information".
And whoever has tried to establish contact with every guest at the end of the breakfast knows that this is mission impossible: every participant is wondering how he is going to explain to his secretary that he won’t arrive at the office before 11am…and on top of that you finished 35 mins late.
The action expected from each guest: that he give you access to a VITO (or at worst to a relay enabling access to his decision-maker) and, initially that he agree to discuss with you the choice of this VITO.
Train your guests: "what are the 3 ideas you are going to develop to convince your VITO to think about the subject?"
Put them on a path of action: "write on your business card the number 1, 2 or 3. "1" your company has a pain on this subject and you want to talk about it; "2" you want to go further to check whether your company is concerned about this pain; "3 " you do not want to hear anything more about us.
Now it’s P-VAL’s turn to check the impact and advise you how to act
"Soon my company is organising a high-stake breakfast, and I would like to consider the opportunity for P-VAL to help us make it a success".