To assist members of the Events and Hospitality Team with their face to face networking skills. The client wanted the team to develop its ability of marketing the corporate opportunities to new and existing contacts. The training was to be conducted through a three hour workshop run by Perfect Pitch’s Training Manager, Paul Bryant.
Our client manages the events and hospitality at The Kia Oval, the home of Surrey Cricket Club.
Perfect Pitch carried out an assessment with the client to examine their needs and the areas they wanted the workshop to focus on. We then tailored the programme accordingly and provided the client with a bespoke session which they approved ahead of delivery.
The workshop focused on the fundamentals of face to face networking, using a mixture of skills required for business development and those that a trained actor would employ to achieve more control of their self-portrayal.
Topics covered included the importance of posture, breathing, voice tone and reading people’s body language and status. The workshop also covered business etiquette, assessing the commercial value of a conversation and how to set the stage for the next action, by using tools such as verbal contracts.
The aim of the first hour of the programme was to give the attendees more control over how they presented themselves. The focus was on understanding how to use self-awareness, physicality and mindfulness to their advantage.
This involved examining posture, breathing techniques and how to read and convey status within a networking environment.
The second hour looked at how the teams could introduce their company and show value to the person they are talking to. This emphasised the importance of concision and clarity when describing their product, particularly in the introductory phase of a business conversation.
Aspects such as conversational pattern, suitable questions to ask and techniques to show value and to create intrigue were all explored.
By this stage, the attendees had been coached on how to portray themselves and how to have a successful verbal exchange with a potential new customer. The next lesson was in assessing the commercial value of a conversation, how to engage efficiently and ways to control its direction.
This section of the workshop focused on the possible outcomes of a conversation in a networking environment, examining a scenario where the contact could be converted to a prospect.
The attendees were taught how to identify if the client had a need for their services, if they had budget, if they were looking to buy and whether they were the decision maker in the purchasing process.
Once these qualifying pieces of information were obtained, the aim then was to exchange business cards with the contact and to suggest the next step in the process, maintaining business etiquette at all times.
To conclude the session, Training Manager Paul Bryant conducted a recap of the points covered and took questions from the floor.
The members of the Events and Hospitality team reported that they found the session useful and enjoyable. They liked the use of drama based games to illustrate points and several remarked on how useful they found the guidance given on conveying status, breathing and posture techniques.
“Paul gave good examples on how you can have more self-awareness, along with giving people more confidence to those who are not always corporate facing.”
“I thought that the card game (to rate the impression a person gave) was very interesting and really highlighted the use of acting in communication.”
If you would like to experience a Perfect Pitch workshop then please get in touch.
+44(0)1483 422 998 Call us or complete this form and we will call you back. Perfect Pitch Head Office 1 Miltons Yard, Petworth Road, Witley GU8 5LH United Kingdom