Business Deals or “Coffee and Donut” meetings?

A few years ago, Antony introduced Ronald (CEO of a very well established company), Bob (a respected and well connected head-hunter) and Sally (head of a business coaching operation) to each other (Names have been changed to protect their anonymity).

They all have a lot of relationships with CEOs in mid-tier organisations and it was clear that they could refer some great leads to each other.

One month later there was a check in. They were overwhelmingly grateful for the introductions, saying that they caught up together and that there was a great connection!

The following is an update after eight months:

They’d met each other once per month for a total of nine months!

They loved their catch ups!

In fact it seemed they loved each other!

Chemistry. Meeting of the minds. Fun. Enjoyable conversations!

But when they were asked how many decision makers they’d referred each other to and how many deals they’d closed, all three went silent.

As though this question was a surprise which they hadn’t thought about.

It’s great that they had bonded! And relationships are the source of joy and a meaningful life.

But from a commercial perspective, they had 9 x Coffee and Donut (Zero sales, nil new referrals, “Nada” extra profit) meetings!

The reality is that most people have never had a huge amount of formal Business Development Training. And often, they rely on developing rapport and a good conversation “landing a deal” instead of using a replicable and highly systematic approach.

The Big Question:

In terms of the connections you make through Symphony 7, will they become “Coffee and Donut” meetings, or will you use them to develop new business, to increase your profits and to help yours and other people’s “cups to overflow” with revenue, profit and options to facilitate uplift in the world?

How we’re taking action to lift everyone’s sales closure rates?

We’re sharing our Strategic Interview Training on May the 26th to help all of our members and some of their respected colleagues and clients to learn the Strategic Interview System in full!

What’s the Strategic Interview System?

It’s a system of questions, asked in a very specific sequence, to interview busy decision makers, including potential clients and separately to interview potential lead referral sources, to qualify “In or Out” of opportunities in 60 minutes or less! And if you qualify In, then you’ll learn 90% of what you need to learn in that very first meeting, in order to put together a Knockout Proposal which has a much higher chance of securing the business.

What’s the point of this training and IP?

Essentially, this particular training and Intellectual Property will equip you and any of your team members to systematically close more business deals and to qualify opportunities better so that you save time by focussing on the opportunities which are more likely to “land”! The system is used to interview senior execs and business owners. A slightly different version (which we will share) is used to interview potential lead referral partners and strategic alliance partners.

Who is the training for?

The training is for anyone who wants to close more business deals and to be efficient and precise when interviewing busy decision makers.

Even the most experienced sales directors and business development people often share feedback along the lines of “I already know a lot about business development but what you’ve given me here is a very structured approach which I can implement to improve the consistency of my business development results.”

Why bother to invest the time?

This training is for people who want to raise their rate of closing business deals:

You may want to spend more time with your family and with the people that you love. And you may have aspirations to use some of your additional profits to make a long term meaningful difference in the world and to help us positively impact more than 1Billion lives by 2030.

If you prefer Ronald, Bob and Sally’s method of having long, fluffy, “coffee and donut” meetings (see Business Deals or “Coffee and Donut” Meetings above), then this training is not best suited for you.

What’s the investment?

If you’re a Symphony 7 member, then the cost is Zero.

It’s already included in your membership.

If the training is full, preference will be given to S7 members.

If you are not yet a Symphony 7 member,

then the investment is $395 + GST per person.

This investment comes with a 110% guarantee –

If you’re not completely delighted with the experience and the

Intellectual property we’ll refund 110% of your investment.

We believe in humanity:

We’re inviting 3 x humanitarian organisations to join the training session live,

and 11% of all proceeds from non-members will be contributed directly to our

humanity-uplift partners, B1G1 (see www.b1g1.com)

Does the system really work?

Read the evidence below and judge for yourself:

In 2013, Green Ant, a sister company to Symphony 7, used this system to interview the CEOs of fourteen potential clients. We used our own qualification system and submitted twelve proposals total. All of them were successful. We attribute the success to the System. We’ve used the Strategic Interview to interview Rod Chadwick in 2001, he was the CEO of Pacific Dunlop ($7Bn conglomerate) and every other decision makers we’ve met since then.

Antony Gaddie, CEO, Green Ant.

"Using guidance we received from Antony, we grew our pipeline by $750,000 in 3 months and closed $500,000 of new business within 6 months. Their system worked really well for us."

Paul Steed, former MD, APD Australia

"I've worked in sales for ten years and I've been to countless training courses. This one is by far the best business development training sessions I've ever attended."

Erica Liston, CEO, Naked Ambition

"Since we began using this system we've submitted 57 new proposals.

All of them have been successful. For us the Return on Investment has been a complete no-brainer."

Adam Centorrino, MD, Centorrino Technologies.

“The intellectual property is fantastic.”

Neville Christie, founder, New Enterprise Services. Former Chairman at the CEO Institute.

"I used a tactic which Antony shared at the sales training to secure an appointment with the CIO of a premier university here in Melbourne. We're now bidding for millions of dollars of business with them! The techniques are easy to implement."

Steve Dew, BDM, Datacom

Contact the host of Running a Strategic Interview