Fierce Collaboration™
What is Fierce Collaboration™?
Six years ago a client came to us with an interesting question. Consumer Electronics University had worked with this regional retailer for two years helping them improve their management, coaching, and leadership skills. The results were very encouraging. Sales were up in a very difficult market, and J.D. Powers had just given them their highest ever customer satisfaction rating. They attributed improved leadership skills as a major factor in this success, but they wanted more.
"Our managers love what they have learned, but their teams want to get in on it too.
How can we raise the bar by helping our store teams lead, coach and train each other?"
It was an interesting concept. So far our training had focused on helping managers develop their people to become "independent high achievers." That's great, but its not the same as creating a group dynamic that works together to achieve team success. In fact, our client suspected that in some cases competition between independent high achievers may be working against team goals.
Most learning starts with good questions; and this client's great questions about teamwork lead us to study and create team leadership training based on the concept of Fierce Collaboration™.
"Fierce Collaboration™" describes the optimal relationship between members of any high performance organization that results in the greatest success for both the organization and its members. Winning teams in sports, business, and even the military know that lasting success is based just as much upon shared goals and frequent honest communication as it is on individual skills and motivation. Fierce Collaboration™ is how successful families work too. Less functional organizations seem to miss this critical concept.
CEU believes that Fierce Collaboration™ also describes the optimal relationship between organizations; like the relationship between a vendor and its customers.
Fierce Collaboration™ is equally applicable to the relationship between retailers and customers, manufacturers and retailers, and training organizations and their clients. For retailers this means developing solution-driven rather than product-driven sales strategies that start and end with the customer, not the product. For vendors, it means learning more about how your products impact a retailer's bottom line and developing flexible programs to match their needs and cultures instead of a "one size fits all" approach.
For training organizations like CEU, Fierce Collaboration™ means recognizing that each client faces unique challenges and has a unique culture and capabilities. That is why CEU training programs are customized to meet each clients learning goals and skill building resources. Every new customer contact begins with consultation and analysis. Every training program is created to meet your specific learning goals. All pre-work and follow up exercises are designed to be successfully executed in your specific company environment; and we work with every client to help them use their existing systems to measure the results.
Fierce Collaboration™ & the Customer-Driven Sales Process
During challenging times; establishing, defending and leveraging our customer base must become a primary focus of every client interaction. All customer contacts with every member of our organization must serve to start, maintain or leverage client relationships. This profoundly changes what we say, what we do, and even how our teams interact with each other.
Fierce Collaboration™ starts with our sales teams; who must shift from their comfortable roles as product and technology experts; to new roles as customer-driven solution partners who diagnose needs and solve real problems.
Customer-driven means changing the way we listen. Instead of qualifying for features and cueing in on “hot buttons,” solution sellers diagnose needs with lifestyle questions and keep listening and asking until they understand the whole picture.
Customer-driven salespeople don’t present benefits; they prescribe solutions. This means throwing out our inventory of canned feature-benefit phrases and generic demonstrations, and building a new inventory of targeted advantage stories and hands-on proof that start and end with the customer, not the product.
Fierce Collaboration™ & the Relationship-Driven Organization
Customer-driven selling is just the first step. Fierce Collaboration™ cannot succeed until everyone in our organization understands that success is measured not by sales tickets or installation efficiency, but by expanding our client base. Everyone must buy in to the concept that no sale is a win, unless it is a "Win-Win" that benefits the seller and buyer both. This means building teams where every member accepts full accountability for customer success. It means that our delivery, installation and customer service teams share responsibility for customer follow up & leveraging relationships to build the brand.
Six years ago a client came to us with an interesting question. Consumer Electronics University had worked with this regional retailer for two years helping them improve their management, coaching, and leadership skills. The results were very encouraging. Sales were up in a very difficult market, and J.D. Powers had just given them their highest ever customer satisfaction rating. They attributed improved leadership skills as a major factor in this success, but they wanted more.
"Our managers love what they have learned, but their teams want to get in on it too.
How can we raise the bar by helping our store teams lead, coach and train each other?"
It was an interesting concept. So far our training had focused on helping managers develop their people to become "independent high achievers." That's great, but its not the same as creating a group dynamic that works together to achieve team success. In fact, our client suspected that in some cases competition between independent high achievers may be working against team goals.
Most learning starts with good questions; and this client's great questions about teamwork lead us to study and create team leadership training based on the concept of Fierce Collaboration™.
"Fierce Collaboration™" describes the optimal relationship between members of any high performance organization that results in the greatest success for both the organization and its members. Winning teams in sports, business, and even the military know that lasting success is based just as much upon shared goals and frequent honest communication as it is on individual skills and motivation. Fierce Collaboration™ is how successful families work too. Less functional organizations seem to miss this critical concept.
CEU believes that Fierce Collaboration™ also describes the optimal relationship between organizations; like the relationship between a vendor and its customers.
Fierce Collaboration™ is equally applicable to the relationship between retailers and customers, manufacturers and retailers, and training organizations and their clients. For retailers this means developing solution-driven rather than product-driven sales strategies that start and end with the customer, not the product. For vendors, it means learning more about how your products impact a retailer's bottom line and developing flexible programs to match their needs and cultures instead of a "one size fits all" approach.
For training organizations like CEU, Fierce Collaboration™ means recognizing that each client faces unique challenges and has a unique culture and capabilities. That is why CEU training programs are customized to meet each clients learning goals and skill building resources. Every new customer contact begins with consultation and analysis. Every training program is created to meet your specific learning goals. All pre-work and follow up exercises are designed to be successfully executed in your specific company environment; and we work with every client to help them use their existing systems to measure the results.
Fierce Collaboration™ & the Customer-Driven Sales Process
During challenging times; establishing, defending and leveraging our customer base must become a primary focus of every client interaction. All customer contacts with every member of our organization must serve to start, maintain or leverage client relationships. This profoundly changes what we say, what we do, and even how our teams interact with each other.
Fierce Collaboration™ starts with our sales teams; who must shift from their comfortable roles as product and technology experts; to new roles as customer-driven solution partners who diagnose needs and solve real problems.
Customer-driven means changing the way we listen. Instead of qualifying for features and cueing in on “hot buttons,” solution sellers diagnose needs with lifestyle questions and keep listening and asking until they understand the whole picture.
Customer-driven salespeople don’t present benefits; they prescribe solutions. This means throwing out our inventory of canned feature-benefit phrases and generic demonstrations, and building a new inventory of targeted advantage stories and hands-on proof that start and end with the customer, not the product.
Fierce Collaboration™ & the Relationship-Driven Organization
Customer-driven selling is just the first step. Fierce Collaboration™ cannot succeed until everyone in our organization understands that success is measured not by sales tickets or installation efficiency, but by expanding our client base. Everyone must buy in to the concept that no sale is a win, unless it is a "Win-Win" that benefits the seller and buyer both. This means building teams where every member accepts full accountability for customer success. It means that our delivery, installation and customer service teams share responsibility for customer follow up & leveraging relationships to build the brand.