Webinar Archive

"The package is part of the product." Everyone in retail knows the truth of that adage—hundreds of great products have failed to capture a market because their packaging looked cheap or unappealing. But that same principle applies to proposals, too. It's all about making a positive first impression. The way you "package" your proposal in terms of layout and design can determine whether the evaluator starts reading it with a favorable opinion or is already disposed to reject it.

Proposals are complex documents that can make or break your ability to win a contract. You may be surprised to know that evaluators "read" your proposal before they read a single word. In the first few seconds your proposal makes an impression that will color how the evaluator responds to your document, whether the impression is negative or positive.

Join Nancy Webb and Dr. Tom Sant as they discuss:

• The most common pitfalls of proposal design—and how to avoid them easily
• How to keep your proposal easy to use and your evaluator interested so that your message has time to persuade
• Quick and easy "rules of thumb" for document design that you can build into your proposal templates to ensure a favorable response
• How to make sure your graphics/visuals reinforce and enhance your content
• How to enhance the credibility of your proposal by incorporating your visual brand

In today's market, a strong value proposition captures the attention of corporate decision makers. Yet most companies have such weak ones that it's amazing anyone can sell anything. In fact, a recent study showed that 75% of executives blamed the failure of their new product offerings on inadequate value propositions.

Do you know what your value proposition is? And if so, is it strong enough to get prospects to choose your proposal? Join Dr. Tom Sant, author of Persuasive Business Proposals, and Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, as they focus on these important questions.

Specifically, you'll learn:

• Why changes in the market have made obsolete the traditional ways of talking about your company's offering.
• How a value proposition is different from an "elevator speech" and a "unique selling proposition."
• The key components of strong value propositions.
• How to find the true value propositions of your company's product or service.
• How to translate your offering into the language of a corporate decision maker.
• How to evaluate the effectiveness of your value proposition from a buyer's perspective.
• Multiple ways to leverage your value proposition in sales documents.

Sometimes it's a good idea to return to the basics — back to the fundamentals of how to achieve excellence in proposal writing. Join Dr. Tom Sant, an internationally recognized expert on business communication, as he describes the four basic principles essential in helping you produce proposals that are more persuasive and more likely to win.

Tom will discuss:

1. The Structure of Persuasion
2. Creating Client-Centered Messages
3. Articulating a Compelling Value Proposition
4. How to Write Clear, Understandable Content

Here are two facts about selling:

1. If your customers don't understand your message, they won't buy.
2. The vast majority of sales people overestimate their customers' level of understanding.

Put those facts together and what do they mean? First, they mean you probably need to develop new ways to deliver your message as simply, clearly, and dramatically as possible. And second, they mean that you’ll benefit from joining Dr. Tom Sant and Anne Miller as they conduct a one-hour Webinar on how to use metaphors and analogies to bring your sales messages alive.

Sometimes great prospects are unable to move forward because they’re lost in a fog of confusion. They don’t have a clear understanding of your product or service. They don’t feel the urgency of the problem. They just aren’t excited by the potential for payback. The skillful use of metaphors and analogies can bring your language alive, drive away the fog and help your customers move forward in making a decision in your favor.

In this Webinar, Tom and Anne will show you how to:

• Create powerful metaphors fast
• Use metaphors and analogies to explain the complex
• Deflect resistance and disarm objections with metaphoric language
• Add creativity, pizzazz, and impact to your message with metaphors and analogies

Like all of the Webinars The Sant Corporation sponsors, this one is practical and bottom-lined oriented. After just one hour of joining these two award-winning writers, you’ll be able to:

• Shorten your sales cycles
• Differentiate yourself from competitors
• Add metaphors and analogies where they matter the most in your selling messages
• Accelerate acceptance of your ideas

You've spent weeks, months, or even years working on a sales opportunity. You've made the short-list and you finally get the chance to submit a proposal or Request for Proposal (RFP) response. Here's the problem: In many cases, the person reviewing your proposal is from the procurement team -- a buyer, and someone you've never met.

How does procurement select a vendor from a stack of proposals? What works? What's a waste of time?

Join Dr. Tom Sant, author and founder of The Sant Corporation, and David Valentine, VP Global Procurement for Monster Worldwide, as they discuss the process used by procurement to evaluate proposals. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn from a procurement expert and ask questions to the person reviewing your proposal!

You give the sales pitch. They tell you they love it. Walking away, you're feeling good -- you're sure you've made the sale... then, nothing. You never hear another word. You make the follow-up call, but they can't remember your pitch. It's another one that got away.

Why, why, why? You ask yourself what went wrong over and over again for hours, maybe days.

So what did that lost opportunity mean to you? Lost commission? A promotion you didn't receive? A missed family holiday? You couldn't buy that new car you had your eye on? And, of course, there's that most haunting thought -- "We should have won that one".

Has this happened to you?

Join Dr. Tom Sant and Andy Bounds as they discuss proven techniques you can apply immediately to win more business by standing out from the competition. In this exclusive webinar, Andy and Tom will share with you:

• The biggest problem with the selling points companies use today
• How to turn your selling points into phrases that captivate and persuade your prospects
• The simplest way to differentiate your company from your competition
• The secret of sales success: minimal focus on what you do

Language is the medium of business. To be successful, we need to communicate effectively in writing. That's true whether we are writing proposals, presentations, or even internal email messages. We must be able to deliver clear, accurate messages that inform, persuade and motivate.

Unfortunately, many sales and marketing professionals are not strong writers. Why? Because they often lapse into one of the four commonly used pseudo-languages that we see all around us. We call these languages Fluff, Guff, Geek and Weasel.

Join Dr. Tom Sant, an internationally recognized expert on business communication, as he shows you how to eliminate the pseudo-languages from your writing so that you can write clearly, concisely, and effectively in your own voice. Tom will share research and examples from his new book, The Language of Success. Attend this webinar and learn:

• Four pseudo-languages that produce poor communication
• Five principles that lead to successful business writing
• Proven structure for winning proposals

What does it mean to redefine business negotiation? Why is now the time to redefine it? How does effective negotiation fit into the proposal process? Join Brian Dietmeyer, President and CEO of Think! Inc., and Dr. Tom Sant, Founder of The Sant Corporation, as they answer these questions and change the way you think about business negotiation.

The new school of negotiation is much more simple, systematic and analytical. Negotiators need only ask two questions:

• What happens to both sides if a deal does not happen
• What is likely to be included for both sides in the event the deal does happen

The answers to these two key questions are all that is needed to “blueprint” business negotiation. Join us to learn how you can redefine negotiation in your company. Who knows what effect it may have on your next sales opportunity!

How often do your customers say, “What will we get back if we buy your solution?”. More and more, customers need to understand the real return they will get from their investments.

In this webinar, Martin Southern from Shark Finesse and Tom Sant from The Sant Corporation, discuss the importance of articulating value in the sales process. Together they propose an approach to help you understand value and demonstrate it to your customers. The discussion covers:

• The role of value in consultative selling
• Understanding value
• Demonstrating compelling value
• Uncovering the data
• Positioning value in your sales messages
• Presenting ROI in your proposals and presentations

Join us to learn how you can establish and communicate the value of your offering.

With 450+ million PowerPoint users worldwide, it’s no wonder that business presentations all start to look the same – lots of text, bullet points, clip art and even gimmicky sound effects! The results are a bored audience with little recall of the message.

The challenge is in learning to use PowerPoint™ effectively. A memorable presentation can make the difference between winning and losing an order, gaining acceptance of an idea or failing, or creating a meaningful exchange of information rather than misunderstanding. It’s one of the keys to sales effectiveness.

Join Dr. Tom Sant, founder of The Sant Corporation, and Nichols Oulton, founder and CEO of m62 visualcommunications, as they show you how to structure compelling sales messages using m62’s ‘Killer Presentations’ approach to PowerPoint and Sant’s methodology for persuasive communication. You’ll find out how you can create presentations that produce visual impact, high recall and bottom-line results.

Since 1987, m62 has succeeded in helping clients win over 85% of their key specific bids. Working with companies ranked in the Global 500 list of top international companies, m62’s unique approach to PowerPoint has helped thousands of presenters make a better impression and win more business. Similarly, The Sant Corporation’s clients have averaged a 25% increase in win rates when incorporating Sant’s proven methodology. Together, they add up to—Killer Presentations!

To find out how you can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your business presentations and achieve measurable results – register today and secure your place for the webinar.

This Webinar will show you how to transform the way you think about PowerPoint and will:

• Eliminate the undesirable assumptions and “worst practices” in presentations and visual aids that dull the impact of your message
• Give you a logical way to put together a presentation that is audience-centered and guaranteed to focus the message on your value proposition
• Show you how PowerPoint slides that illustrate and explain, rather than simply list points, make your presentations much more effective

Power the imagination to visualize your Point: PowerPoint

Whether you and your sales team follow the SPIN^® Selling philosophy, the Solution Selling^® process, or any other sales approach, you probably realize that sales happen when you effectively connect with your prospects and clients. To connect, you need to understand their business and the challenges they face, but where do you gain the knowledge you need to accomplish that? Industry intelligence provides the support needed to effectively engage customers and prospects as a valued partner through every stage of the sales cycle, leveraging knowledge to successfully provide the tools needed for your customer’s ultimate success.

Join Dr. Tom Sant, founder of The Sant Corporation, and Bobby Martin, president and co-founder of First Research, as they share examples of how First Research customers including Microsoft, Merrill Lynch, J.H. Cohn, and BB&T are using industry intelligence to improve each stage of the sales cycle. Hear real examples of how industry intelligence can help you:

• Improve marketing initiatives with the inclusion of industry content that directly correlates with current and prospective customer’s businesses
• Successfully reach and engage prospects by understanding the specific challenges they face
• Maintain and retain customer relationships by offering sound advice and services based on their needs and objectives
• Develop vertical strategies in an effort to extend the reach of your customer base
• Engage key decision makers by demonstrating a thorough understanding of their business and the particular challenges they face
• Increase the effectiveness of presentations by using client-centric language and offering insight specific to timely issues
• Grow your business by further engaging the customer after the sale based on your awareness of their changing needs, challenges and opportunities

Everyone has heard the famous phrase, “buyer beware,” but what about us as sellers? Is there buying behavior we should beware of? Or at least be aware of?

Dr Reed Holden and Dr Tom Sant will discuss buying behavior in the business-to-business market, focusing on four common patterns of buying behavior. Knowing what kind of buyer you’re dealing with can help you sell more efficiently and effectively. For example, if you’re dealing with a “price buyer,” you can avoid wasting your time by establishing value-added components. Dr. Holden will explain how to recognize each type of buyer and how to modify your sales approach to maximize results.

In this webinar you will learn how to:

• Avoid the damage of bidding wars
• Leverage a relationship for better margin
• Deal with aggressive behavior in purchasing agents
• Avoid commoditization
• Recognize the right value to sell when the customer is willing to pay

Since the late 80's, the customer relationship management (CRM) field has promised breakthrough results. Billions of dollars and millions of hours have been invested into systems to improve sales performance. While we do have some incrementally better data, the overall ROI has been limited. Many companies are still searching for ways to increase sales effectiveness and show a more quantifiable benefit from their CRM investment.

A new research study just completed during Q3 2005 by the Yankee Group has shown that growth-oriented companies are generating impressive results. But what they are focusing on is sales effectiveness. Recognizing that sales is true “knowledge work,” they focus on helping their sales teams sell smarter. The result: they drive out waste and reinforce best practices throughout the sales organization, producing more wins in less time.

Join Dr. Tom Sant, founder of the Sant Corporation, and Sheryl Kingstone of the Yankee Group as they present the Yankee Group’s findings and discuss new ideas in sales effectiveness.

In this Webinar, Michael Green, Chairman of SalesGene, Mike Bosworth, founder of Customer Centric Selling, and Dr. Tom Sant, founder of The Sant Corporation and author of The Giants of Sales, will discuss the three most important dimensions to professional selling:

• Great salespeople follow a proven process.
• Research has established that sales is a process and you will be more successful if you follow the steps of the process.
• They go beyond intuition to forge strong relationships with buyers.
• Sales is built on relationships with other people, relationships characterized by trust and mutual gain.
• They create persuasive messages that motivate customers to buy.
• Language is the medium of sales, the vehicle by which sales messages are delivered, and the effective use of language can increase win rates.

Michael, Tom, and Mike will cover the following topics:

• What are the most significant challenges to achieving sales success in these three dimensions and how can those challenges be overcome?
• What are the components of an effective sales process?
• What is the best way to integrate sales and marketing?
• What are the potential pitfalls from defining a specific sales process and how do you avoid them?
• What is the most effective way to establish meaningful and sustainable relationships?
• What is the most effective way to use language to close business?

The sales techniques that work best...have always worked best. That’s because they’re rooted in the cognitive science of persuasion and decision making. Sweeping away all the fads and focusing on the basics is a terrific way to improve your sales effectiveness!

Sales theories come and sales theories go, but when you return to the roots of modern sales methods you find four core ideas that still work. These are the “four dimensions” of selling and every professional sales person needs to understand them and apply them. Dr. Tom Sant spent more than two years researching the roots of modern professional selling for his new book, The Giants of Sales, investigating both the origins of the four key ideas and why they are so powerful. In this Webinar he will cover each the four ideas that revolutionized selling and explain the principles that make them still effective today:

• Sales is a process, not an event. Taking the right steps in the right order makes it easier for the customer to buy.
• Sales is based on personal relationships. Even in the eCommerce world, buyers demand a personal connection. If they don’t like us and trust us, they won’t buy from us.
• Language is the medium of sales. All selling requires language, and using language in the right way can dramatically improve your win ratio.
• Sales success requires a continuous supply of leads. Simple techniques of closed-loop marketing can guarantee a continuous supply of customers who are ready to buy.

Join us for this fascinating analysis of the four dimensions of selling.

Every sales process and every proposal requires proof. Customers first become inclined to buy based on emotional factors—solving a problem, meeting a need, gaining a big payback—but then they want to justify that “gut” decision with logical proof, such as a case study or customer reference.

Join David Sroka, CEO of Point of Reference, and Dr. Tom Sant, founder of The Sant Corporation, as they discuss market trends related to organizing and managing customer references and case studies. Learn what forms of proof are expected and useful to buyers from inquiry through proposal sales stages. Explore a new way of thinking about and using recorded content that’s been adopted by many of technology’s biggest players to gain competitive advantage and avoid the “burn-out” of their best reference customers. Hear why many organizations have established formal customer reference programs once they understand the direct correlation between customer loyalty and profitability. Find out how these programs can create mutually beneficial value propositions that go well beyond the cliché use of gifts, spiffs and comps. This session will be chock full of reference management best practices that will improve sales effectiveness, win-rates and customer relationships.

For the past seven months we have introduced you to industry experts who have shared their best practices around sales effectiveness. Growth-oriented companies are using these techniques to generate impressive sales results. Recognizing that sales is true “knowledge work,” these companies focus on helping their sales teams sell smarter. The result: they drive out waste and reinforce best practices throughout the sales organization, producing more wins in less time.

Join Sheryl Kingstone, senior analyst with the Yankee Group, and Dr Tom Sant, founder of The Sant Corporation, as they share new research and ideas in sales effectiveness. Participate in live surveys and learn how your peers are addressing the sales effectiveness issue. Plus, vote for the topics you want us to discuss in our next series of free webinars.