Case study - Large group confidence boost

Industry: Professional services Background: In common with many technically oriented service providers, the management of this large group were keen to build deeper, more trusted relationshipos with their clients that mitigated the focus on price and offered greater opportunities to cross-sell different services.  The key to building these relationships was to increase the confidence of key staff to engage in business conversations. IOWEU input: To meet the client's desired outcome of increased confidence in key areas but at low cost per-head, IOWEU put together a one-day seminar including practice sessions to help a group of more than 60 attendees reflect on their current realtionship approaches and try out alternatives.  The primary goal was to increase participants' confidence in holding broad business conversations (unrelated to their area of technical expertise), putting across their ideas and handling difficult questions.  Outcomes: Participants were asked to rate their confidence level in key areas both before and after the session.  In the key areas targeted, participants confidence increased significantly, as represented in the charts opposite.  Management subsequently reported an increase in client satisfaction ratings supported by anecdotal evidence of improved relationships including, on a single client, the winning of of a USD200k project - a return on investment far in excess of the seminar cost.

Degree of confidence before and after seminar Holding broad business conversations: Presenting new ideas: Responding credibly to tough questions: