Meeting facilitation; Thinking Outside the Bow™

BAX Global

The sales team of BAX Global wanted to enhance their ability to plan and think of more creative and strategic approaches to their key accounts, as they increasingly focused on their target 'Global Accounts'. They had been working with another well known account planning system for some time, but were finding people were not using it as regularly as they had hoped. Thus they also wanted a tool which was easy to use. Their once a year sales conference was the forum to introduce a new tool, and the style of delivery needed to be fun and interactive.

Thinking Outside the Bow (TOTB) was delivered as a one day workshop, which included plenty of experiential exercises, and led to the group applying the method to team discussions about their accounts.

The feedback strongly endorsed TOTB as superior to the existing planning tool because it provided a more dynamic and flexible way of assessing and discussing strategic approaches. As well, people found the delivery of the workshop to be stimulating and varied. The group subsequently introduced Thinking Outside the Bow as a standard sales meeting process, and this was supported by the high quality printed materials which were used by all sales people.

Some comments from happy participants:

"Excellent - combining good fun/entertainment with actual learning. Sometimes we were learning without realising it at the time"

"A great method of self analysis and questioning the validity of our own established thought processes"

"Enjoyed looking at the accounts in detail with the use of gold sheets"

OTIS Building Technology

OBT were challenged with the long and complex sales process inherent in their industry, from need development through to sign off on a range of levels of proposals. They needed a method of consistent strategic account management, which enabled insight into the most high leverage actions they could take at any point in the cycle. Thinking Outside the Bow formed the basis of a two day sales training program which provided a simple foundation, and increasing layers of sophistication as people required greater ability to drill down and insight into their accounts.

Two days is a long time to attend a workshop, so the mode of delivery was as important as the content. The workshop provided a balance of concept and theory, with hands on learning and relevant case studies.

Comments from some participants included ..

"The variety of group activity, group discussion and lecture/ discussion was very good"

"The Success Planning worksheet process once revealed seems so like common sense. An eye opener."