Webseminars
Please note that all PM Forum events are member only and are recognised by the CIM for CPD purposes
Pitching Masterclasses
Wednesday 14 January 2009 - Wednesday 11 February 2009 - Tuesday 3 March 2009
UK - 17:30 to 19:00;
Central Europe - 18:30 to 20:00;
North America (Eastern) - 12:30 to 14:00
Overview
In the view of Peter Rush, The Pitch Doctor, we are now entering what he calls the new age of necessity where at a business and personal level we will make more and more of our buying decisions on a needs basis rather that a wants one. Sustainability will also become more important too.
We will still of course have wants but they will be more rationally tempered by buyers adapting more rigorous, honest and demanding views of what the business can get by without as well as what support it must have to survive and thrive in a new phase of capital readjustment and profound regulatory change.
Pitching professional services then needs to be reviewed in this new light too. A good test of your approach now is going to be your answers to the following question: What new things do we need to do, to adapt and to change in our approach to pitching to make it fit for purpose in a recession?
The first three webseminars of the new year are designed to help you answer this vital question, help you to critically review your current approach and thinking, and help you to explore what you need to stop doing, start doing and do better.
Each has been designed to work alone but there is a theme that connects them. That theme is the powerful renewing energy of change which always brings great opportunity whatever ushered it in. So we are going to focus on harnessing those forces to make our pitching life funkier, more creative and more successful.
Belfast-born Peter Rush is part of a new breed of business consultant who lives and breathes winning pitches and tenders with and for their clients. A pitch doctor, commercial writer, author, change agent and business coach with over 25 years experience of winning commercial tenders and pitches in most professional fields. He specialises in the legal world and has a growing global client list with many top 50 UK firms.
His diverse background includes: retail marketing with John Lewis; campaigning in local government and a spell as Training Director of Plain English Campaign. He spent five years with the BBC as a freelance radio journalist and has a regular published opinion piece and writes for The Lawyer. Peter also lectures and run seminars on communications issues at a range of universities including Cambridge and Chester where he lives.
Booking form
Webseminar 1: Getting your pitch structure and content right
Wednesday 14 January 2009
All pitches are about getting the client or prospect to say yes. To trust your business to deliver some form of competitive advantage or service. It follows then that our pitches must be designed and scripted with that in mind. They must move us towards that point and visibly demonstrate the benefits of our people and approach.
A pitch is also an act of persuasion and we know that this requires both a logical and emotional case to be made and this too has to be woven into the story that nearly all successful pitches are.
This webseminar will cover:
- How you can encourage an open and useful review of your current pitching abilities and potential,
- What your main structure options are, what the client really wants and how to build this into your pitch,
- A simple and highly effective tool to quickly generate and critique your pitch content,
- Some examples of pitch structures in action.
Booking form
Webseminar 2: Selecting and coaching the pitch team
Wednesday 11 February 2009
Selection contains a series of minefields for the BD professional. Balancing the brand's needs against seniority for example. The big question always is who will bring alive our offering in this pitch with this prospect in the best possible light. How are you going to assemble and deliver a team from a what may be a diverse group of specialists? We will explore this.
The most exciting part of the role for Peter is coaching the individuals and teams against the fast-moving commercial pressures of the day job, delivering professional services, yet still finding the time and ingenious ways to get the best performance out of your team.
This webseminar will cover:
- Roles and responsibilities in the pitch team selection process,
- ‘Grow your own’ with an internal pitch school resource,
- What coaching at work is all about, performance and how to help each team member towards a personal best,
- What you should be doing to improve your coaching skills and potential as a coach.
Booking form
Webseminar 3: Pitching in a recession
Tuesday 3 March 2009
As this is written in late December none of us really know how bad the news in gloomy February and wind blown March will be. The fact is we have to pitch in all weathers, fair and foul and business is there to be won and lost by what we do or fail to do regardless of outside conditions.
Adaptability is your watchword and Peter will be exploring how you can critically audit your pitching strategies and approaches to persuasion in a downturn and exploit the opportunities that are still there.
Life just got a whole lot more competitive and our response must be to raise our pitching game and we will look at how to do that too. But the great opportunity change brings is also here. Change once ushered in, even unbidden, works its magic precisely because it contains new possibilities and boundless energy that can only be released after destruction has done its job.
This webseminar will cover:
- What is changing in how buyers of professional services think and act now,
- What an audit of your pitching strategy might look like,
- How to support your teams to review their approach to selling professional services and drive change,
- What should we be doing at a personal level to cope with the new pressures selling in a downturn inevitably brings.
Booking form