Elsevier is The World's Largest Academic Publishing and Information Analytics Business With An Annual Revenue of Nearly $3 Billion and Over 8,700 Employees Worldwide.
THE CHALLENGE
“To Offer Motivation, Inspiration and Strategies to Increase Sales and Bring Some Fun To The Conference”
Elsevier is the world’s leading provider of academic journals and information analytic solutions to countries around the world. They employ over 6,500 staff and have an annual turnover of over $3 billion. After the pandemic and other logistical challenges this was the first time senior leader,s managers and consultants would be coming together. The needed fresh insights to selling in the modern age, how to collaborate more effectively and how to push and drive additional sales off the back of the main product range.
There was a range of positions including Account Managers, responsible for the overall management of a customer – focussed on specific sectors and geographies.
Solution Sales Managers responsible for driving new sales in our specialist domains like Chemistry, Clinical Development, Engineering, pharma post market etc
Customer Consultants responsible for post-sales engagement with users and their leaders – driving usage and capturing.
Finally there were Strategic Engagement Managers- exclusively engaged with Elsevier top-tier customers, focussing on building relationships at mid and high-level management levels, seeking out key projects, and orchestrating internal resources to offer solutions as well as reinforcing existing investments in Elsevier Life Sciences Solutions.
DUNCAN’S SOLUTION
“Create a custom keynote involving interactive mentalism performances and tailored sales strategies to increase sales, encourage repeat business and increase average spend on add-on solutions and subscription memberships.”
It all starts with a phone call, Zoom or Teams call for Duncan to really understand the client’s needs. Elsevier was performing well but wanted a keynote speaker to motivate and inspire the sales team into delivering more sales off the back of their current sales. There were a number of new employees as well as some sales managers who weren’t performing as well as they could have been. Duncan’s brief was to give them some new insights and strategies to increase sales, and influence their current customers to spend more on add-ons such as subscriptions etc. The event team were also keen for Duncan to empahsise the importance of collaboration.
Duncan devised some unique mentalism pieces to hang the bigger message of collaboration and influence on and shared some custom startegies to influence customers to spend more on additional services. He also facilitated his fun interactive experiment in which everyone involves in an interactive experiment where they influence one another. This same experiment is revisited at the end of the keynote and more delegates are able to influence, persuade and collaborate more effectively.
THE RESULT
“I loved your stories and the mentalism was wow! You can see how many notes I take and will definitely be putting this into practice. Thanks for coming and hope we can get you back for a workshop or something.”
Duncan’s keynote was rated as one of the highest of the conference and the team felt energised and inspired at the end of it. The interactive sessions gave the newer members of the team to meet and integrate with the more established members of the team which would spill over into their organization too.
UPDATE:
Since this keynote was delivered, Elsevier has continued to grow it’s client base with a steady increase in sales despite difficult international economic conditions.
THOUGHTS FROM DUNCAN
“Fun is just another word for learning and what we learn for pleasure we never foget.”
When I am asked to include some playful elements into my keynote it always excites me as this is one of the things that makes me different. The team had lots of fun in the interactive experiments and it was great to see them interacting. The luxury of the Q and A at the end really gave the team the opportunity to ask probing questions with some of the challenges they were facing individually and how they could apply influence and persuasion strategies to their unique set of circumstances. This was a fun group and even though I didn’t get to see Barcelona except through the window of a taxi, the delegates certainly left with some inspiring insights.
If you are interested in bringing Duncan to your event to improve performance and move you from good to great, then get in touch using the button below.