When I first began exploring the idea of bringing Eric in to conduct a workshop as part of our Annual Sales Kick-Off meeting, I was hesitant because I had limited experience working with him, and we’re very conscious about who we invest in terms of outside help. We share clients in common with Eric, heavy hitters in the construction industry, and I did some research into his work (listening to his podcast was helpful) and got feedback from those companies. The feedback received gave us the confidence that Eric would be a good fit, and we decided to bring him in.
When Eric and I were discussing the objectives and agenda of the workshop, I thought he might’ve been oversimplifying our overall vision for the event, but he did a fantastic job during his presentation, of clearly articulating and expanding on the points I wanted to be emphasized about establishing meaningful customer relationships, building trust, and being persistent.
The presentation was clear and concise. Eric’s exercises were extraordinarily beneficial and eye-opening. Instead of overwhelming us with too much information, he took a simple approach, which will help us to be more deliberate and direct in how we approach our growth efforts in the next year.
Eric is a very charismatic presenter and held the audience captive for the two-hour session, which was a good thing because many on our team are very seasoned – and can sometime lean toward the cynical end of the spectrum when receiving advice or coaching from somebody outside of our organization. Our team appreciated the fact that Eric has had extensive experience working in and serving some of the same industries that we do – and that he has spent a lot of his own time on the ground, in the trenches as they say. There was mutual empathy between him and our team about challenges service and sales professionals face. I got feedback from the more seasoned team members after the meeting, and they said it was a breath of fresh air, informative – that the time flew by, and it was one of the best annual kickoff meetings we’ve had.
I say this half-joking, Eric is not inexpensive, but being cheap doesn’t always equate to value, and he exceeded my expectations and the expectations of the group. We walked away very motivated, pumped up and energized. Eric’s workshop was well worth the time and money we invested.
Consultative sales and service professionals can easily get caught up in a plethora of day to day activities that can hinder their productivity – and we occasionally need to reevaluate our priorities; I recommend Eric’s workshop to any team that needs to be motivated to refocus on the few, truly meaningful priorities that ensure success: developing meaningful relationships, continual self-improvement/education and delivering the best products and services that each of us can possibly offer.
