The need to motivate their teams to do better, and achieve more, is one of the most common reasons clients call on me. A common scenario is one where their sales teams have become order takers, or don’t believe they can achieve their stretching targets.
I also work with Sales Directors who want to support their Sales Managers to help deliver better performance from their teams.
By using a variety of exercises and tools, using personal experiences, anecdotes and a healthy dose of humility to illustrate, I help managers and their teams cut through the “stuff” that gets in the way and focus on their objectives. Using my geared approach to performance (GAP) your team take on a laser sharp focus that is easily managed to ensure success.
I work tirelessly with clients to establish what success looks like. This allows them to quantify their return on investment when the assignment is complete.
Everything that I have learned throughout my business and sporting life, I have achieved through a geared approach to performance (GAP).
I have used this simple, yet very effective tool to build businesses, restructure companies, implement change programmes, build super teams, complete an Ironman and the run “toughest footrace on Earth” – the Marathon des Sables.
GAP provides the framework for people to achieve their objectives. It is robust and contains critical steps missed by most business plans that creates laser sharp focus.
This is the stress test. Is the objective the right one? How important is it, both to the business and to you personally? If it’s a ‘nice to have’, we disregard it. Only those objectives that really mean something are capable of being achieved.
How will you meet your objective? What do you need to get there, who do you need to involve – what will the milestones be?
This is the most critical stage of the plan. What controls will measure your progress? What will keep you on track to achieving the objective? If a plan is going to fail, it will fail here. Your Control could be a Manager, your diary, a Coach or technology … whatever it is, it needs to be a regular touchpoint to ensure you keep up to date with progress.
Put your plan into action.
This is the bit we don’t like: the appraisal. Having completed the action required to achieve the stated objective, how did you do? What did you learn? What went well? If you didn’t reach your objective, why not and what could you have done differently to get a better result? Based on all of this, was the objective attainable had you followed the plan?
The biggest failure is setting the bar too low and achieving it. Having worked this through, we can go right back to stage 1 and reset the objectives.
The GAP approach drives better performance.
How we might do itEvery client and situation is different, so my content is bespoke to your specific industry and business objectives.
Through my sporting and business activities I have learned the importance of preparation and also the need to observe the landscape to anticipate what might be approaching.
I use simple examples from sport and business to illustrate ways to solve problems or increase performance and gain greater market share. While working with Henley Management School for a client I adapted a number of established business models into practical tools that can be used by managers to increase focus and performance.
My aim is to help the participants realise what needs to be done and focus them on the task ahead having armed them and their managers with the tools to carry out the work.
This isn’t about applying theoretical business tools. All of my content is informed by my own real-world commercial experience of building two successful businesses and managing the performance of high-fliers. Not forgetting the very personal challenge of completing some of the most extreme sporting events on earth and learning lessons the hard way.
The following video testimonials are from clients that have worked with me in designing and delivering conferences through to improving the performance of their teams. After all, who better to explain the benefits from working with me? Case studies relating to the testimonials are also available.
Below is a varied selection of projects I have created and led for my clients.
AXA PPP’s wanted their conference in Nice to be ‘one to remember’. This event, for their top staff, wasn’t to be a ‘corporate jolly’; they wanted to make meaningful cultural change that would be felt – and acted on – when everyone returned to work.
I designed the theme of the conference around behaviours, with the goal of showing how different behaviours affects performance in teams. The key here was interaction: both in terms of getting individuals to recognise what type of behaviours they exhibited at work, and in showing them how different behaviours knit together to create the most effective teams.
All attendees were sent a behavioural profile before attending, and provided their report back in advance of the conference. We began by looking at the different types of behaviours that exist in the work place – from extroverts to conformists – and looked at what motivated and demotivated each group. They then took part in various exercises which lived the theory, and helped them to see which behaviours best matched each particular role in the team. In understanding what drives different people, they were able to put together teams that were most productive.
We filmed all the teamwork and played back edited highlights the following day to illustrate the main learning points, something that really resonated with the audience.
This learning was then carried through by the managers when the attendees returned to their offices. One of the key take-outs of the event was the creation of a shared ‘language’: one that respected the strengths, weaknesses and motivations of people with different profiles. It allowed people to communicate without confrontation and with respect for each other’s role, and as such, represented a cultural shift for the business.
F&C Asset Management were dealing with the all-too-common scenario of Sales and Marketing operating in silos, with both sides believing the other didn’t support them effectively. My brief was to design an event which would improve the sales skills of their Account Managers, and bring marketing and sales more in-line; pulling towards a common goal.
I knew that in order for this to impact on the team in a meaningful way, we needed to do something a bit different.
To begin with, each individual was given the task of giving a 5-minute pitch (with no props or notes) to a panel of three judges, whilst standing on the famous ‘X’. They were given instant feedback, and then had four hours to improve on the presentation and do it again.
During that time they also had to prepare a 5-minute team presentation, with a mix of sales and marketing people on each team. Everyone had to participate, which got sales and marketing working together effectively, not to mention united in trying to beat their colleagues’ scores. All of this was filmed.
The objective was for the teams to develop a greater knowledge of their product range and improve their presentation skills, enabling them to build a focused sales campaign together.
Following the event, the teams delivered the sales action plan successfully over the next 3 months with longer term benefits. Most importantly, they developed a respect for each other’s roles in the process, and worked together more closely in the future.
When I was asked to speak at the annual Sales Conference for Skandia Investment Management, with the aim of encouraging more effective team building, I got their senior management to agree to a more creative solution.
Rather than talk about how to engender team building in principle, I wanted to show it happening in practice. In an unexpected, yet highly engaging way.
In music, you have to be precise – the ultimate team. There’s no allowance for errors, the ‘show must go on’, no matter what the obstacles and hurdles.
A week before the conference I brought together five world class musicians who had never played together before. They had three days to knit together as a team to be able to perform 12 tracks live to an audience.
At the conference, I delivered the theory. Then I turned to the practice, to show how the lessons demonstrated could lead to team success. The band delivered an amazing performance, despite a number of set-backs they faced along the way, because they had one common aim.
They also served as fantastic entertainment at the end of the conference.
Clerical Medical wanted to understand their key clients better, in order to better support their business activities and the marketing of their products.
Rather than just run a series of workshops, I designed and ran a 3-day Business School at Henley Management School for their key clients. Professor Doug West from the Management school delivered the theory – I converted it to practical tools and techniques.
The aim was to go much further than workshops would, helping each client to build a corporate business plan that would help them run a more effective business across the board. Clerical Medical’s account managers were also trained on the methodology to allow them to support their key clients’ transitioning their businesses.
This format allowed Clerical Medical to gain an unprecedented level of insight into each client’s business. These learnings allowed them to tailor their offer more effectively, which in turn made the clients more successful, resulting in bigger bottom line returns for Clerical Medical.
I subsequently spoke at two of their conferences explaining what we’d done, why it was done in this way, how it made them unique in the market, and how to maximise the performance of their sales team using these techniques.