DAY 1 - BUSINESS SENSE AND MARKETING PRINCIPLES (SEGMENTATION / TARGETING / POSITIONING)

Jean-Luc Geha, visiting professor, HEC Montréal.

This module aims to familiarize you with business acumen in a sales context. As the sales function is responsible for establishing the link between your company and your customers, it is important to know your internal environment and what governs your work from a managerial perspective.

This module will paint a picture of the important points in the sales and business development context, which will allow you to stand out by having a global vision of the situation.

• Understand how your business relates to the market.
• Recognize the importance of seeing the big picture.
• Define your mission/vision.
• Discover strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).
• Use the value chain and Porter's 5 forces.
• Interpret PESTEL (political, economic, sociological, technological, environmental and legal).
• Familiarize yourself with the concepts of segmentation, targeting, positioning.

DAY 2 – BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Isabelle Demers, lecturer, HEC Montréal.

This module will present you with communication strategies in a business development and sales context, using recognized and effective techniques. This will allow you to clearly define the value that you can bring to the customer, and offer an optimal solution based on their needs.

• Integrate business development into your organization's business strategy.
• Recognize the importance of “creating value” as your customer defines it.
• Adapt your customer contact in a context of market transformation.
• Take advantage of monitoring and business intelligence tools.
• Observe the market and determine channels.
• Optimize the development of your contacts and the choice of your potential customers.
• Realize the essential role of interpersonal communication.
• Improve your verbal and non-verbal communication.

DAY 3 - RELATIONSHIP SELLING: SALES AND NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUES

Daniel Fournier, lecturer, HEC Montréal.

This advanced sales module covers all aspects of a salesperson's job. You will have the chance to deepen and improve your sales techniques, and to see the entire process that goes from prospecting to customer follow-up, which constitutes the heart of the work of salespeople and business development managers. This training also aims to preserve and build a long-term business relationship with your customers.

• Understand sales techniques.
• Encourage engagement among your customers.
• Recognize the importance of preserving and building a long-term business relationship with your customers.
• Implement an effective sales strategy linked to that of the organization.
• Learn how to use interpersonal communication and sales techniques to influence, convince and satisfy your current and potential customers.
• Familiarize yourself with each step of the sales and negotiation processes to maximize the likelihood of success with customers.
• Better understand negotiation in a sales context and the importance of preparing the negotiation strategy.
• Deal with objections.
• Recognize customer buying signals and choose the correct closing method.
• Schedule virtual sales meetings with the help of digital tools.
• Introduce you to personal management of your territory, your time and your stress.
• Introduce you to the tools of LinkedIn and a customer success platform (CRM).
• Make you aware of the ethics of the seller and the management of complaints.
• Emphasize the importance of follow-ups to prepare for the next sale.

DAY 4 - SALES MANAGEMENT

Giovanni DiGirolamo, lecturer, HEC Montréal.

This module will help you lead a team effectively and increase its performance. It will allow you to supervise your teams and sales activities, and will offer you concrete solutions to develop or consolidate your skills, particularly in terms of team mobilization, support (coaching) and performance evaluation, in order to become a manager effective sales.

• Understand the role of the sales manager.
• Recognize how to develop the skills and performance of your sales team.
• Develop optimal skills and techniques for managing your team.
• Learn to use available information effectively and strategically.
• Better understand strategic and operational tasks.
• Manage your company's entire sales efforts successfully.
• Decode relevant information to make strategic sales decisions.
• Discover how to build, manage and mobilize your team while taking social distancing into account.
• Fully assert your leadership.

DAY 5 - IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EFFECTIVE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Isabelle Demers, lecturer, HEC Montréal.

With this integrative module, you will be able to determine and put into practice, in a personalized way, the elements related to business development and sales on which you need to improve, back in your organization.

You will be able to apply the lessons learned, whether in relation to the ways of doing things in your organization or to the practical application of communication or sales techniques.

You will emerge with a coherent plan and concrete improvement actions that will take into account not only best practices, but the reality of your organization, with the aim of helping you achieve and exceed your business objectives.

• Understand and integrate the different aspects of a business development plan.
• Recognize concrete elements of change and improvement for your team, your company and you.
• Assess your current situation regarding your internal business development capabilities.
• Determine the mitigation actions that respond to your current issues as well as the areas of improvement to be implemented.
• Develop a coherent plan and concrete improvement actions.
• Lay the foundations of your business development plan and your personalized sales tactics.

TEACHING APPROACH

• Dynamic approach and targeted interventions
• Template to put together your business development plan
• Exercises to put the concepts taught into practice
• Team case studies and group discussions
• Work tools that can be quickly used
• Sharing experiences
• Discussions on participants' challenges as salespeople or sales managers