Email: bruno@kiconsulting.co.za

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“Irresistible new forces have been reshaping the world of selling. Sales functions everywhere are in various stages of radical and profound change comparable to those that began in manufacturing years ago ... But one change outweighs all the others. The meaning of selling itself is shifting. The very purpose of sales is being rapidly redefined.”


- Neil Rackham, best-selling author whose works have

been translated into over 50 languages

Read what our clients are saying about us …

Karabina - Micosoft Gold Partner


“Over the last year, Bruno has helped coach the Karabina sales team from being average sales individuals into driven results-orientated sales professionals, with more insight into how to handle complex solution selling …

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SAP Africa Region


“I have worked with Bruno for many years and have the highest regard for his expertise, professionalism and client focus. Bruno delivers exceptional value in bringing new sales staff up to speed, as well as …

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PwC Advisory Africa


“Bruno is now in his fifth year of an ongoing successful Sales Performance Improvement Program engagement with us at PwC South Africa within our Consulting business including key Senior Forensic & Deals Partners. We have …

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About Us

Introduction


Ki Consulting is an independent organisation that specialises in the provision of sales coaching and carefully selected value-added services focused on the development of high-performance salespeople in today’s new-generation business-to-business global economy. Services are provided to small-to-medium organisations as well as to leading local and multi-national enterprises.


Background


Many principles and techniques that professional salespeople have relied on in the past have become obsolete. Corporate organisations in the 21st Century no longer simply buy products – they invest in solutions that address their business imperatives.


To stand any chance of making a sale in today’s highly competitive global economy, salespeople have to demonstrate how the solution they offer will help a customer increase revenues, decrease expenses or enable a specific or transformational strategy to succeed.


And if this is not challenging enough, the decision-making process in this new era has become increasingly complex.

It is characterised by ever-increasing levels of scrutiny in an environment governed by ever-expanding constituencies of influencers and decision-makers.


In order to succeed in this new era, sales-driven organisations require a new generation sales force that understands the new dynamics of selling. A sales force that knows how to achieve and maintain the

right Ki.


Working closely with management and the sales force of an organisation as both a technical advisor and sales coach at various strategic levels in order to improve individual and organisational sales performance, Ki Consulting brings focus to a much broader, more holistic range of services.


These services deal with both sales effectiveness (strategy and skills coaching) and sales efficiency (sales processes, account and opportunity planning). These collectively, when enhanced with individual drive to succeed, are the core components of a high-performance sales force.

Sales Performance Coaching

While most salespeople undertake some form of training in the fundamentals of “how to sell”, very few are guided through the subsequent and critical steps on the road to success.


These are the steps that enable them to harness what they are told and what they may have learnt in basic training and apply it to operational requirements that translate into exceptional performance.


Ki Consulting has adopted a philosophy based on the principles of “coaching for reinforcement”. This approach recognises universal acceptance by all leading international vendors that Infield Sales

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."

- Michelangelo

Performance Coaching is the most effective and appropriate way to maximise sales success.


Experiential training that focuses on skill awareness, skill understanding and sales competence is translated into high performance and success through telling, showing and coaching.

Coaching Process

The Coaching Process - Overview


Ki Consulting limits its professional engagements to a maximum of two or three clients at any time in order to guarantee highly personalised, customised and quality assured outcomes.


The coaching process is launched on the back of a workshop – “BTB Selling - Play to Win”. Based on the reality that “everyone sells” in today’s new era, the workshop is for all in the organisation who touch on the sales process, including the sales force, management, (pre-sales) consultants and customer service personnel etc.


Focused on how to position “selling in the new era” the workshop helps individuals to understand and take advantage of changed buying behaviours that exist today. The workshop will also help contextualise any sales training that the sales force may have undertaken at any time in the past.


The programme then moves into the experiential phase when the Ki Consulting executive consultant observes and then coaches critical skill sets in the field, feeding back to management and the salespeople in a closed-loop cycle.

In the coaching process we therefore use the Prospect opportunity as the focus area and the opportunity is in itself the enabler for individual Account Executive experiential sales coaching.


In this process salespeople are constantly challenged to think through each and every step of the sales cycle and to define critical success factors.


The coaching of skills in the field is enhanced through the transfer of knowledge to enable individuals to not only maintain competency levels but to grow them. Should any significant skills deficiencies be identified, specific “remedial” training courses will be recommended. Ad–hoc training to address skills gaps will also be delivered as part of the coaching intervention to polish, or to create a greater awareness of the more important skills requirements.


The programme also addresses the sales cycle by coaching the careful alignment of the sales process with appropriate soft-selling skills in order to more fully develop that application of conscious competencies that will ultimately lead to “unconscious excellence”.


Sales cycle coaching includes the implementation of effective account planning and management, opportunity development, sales execution, negotiation skills, proposal preparation and presentation, and winning “tips and tricks”.

Value Added Services

Based on many years of practical experience at the coalface of selling complex business-to-business solutions and services, Ki Consulting prides itself on the value and measurable business benefit it brings to client engagements.


This background of experience has been leveraged by Ki Consulting since its inception 15 years ago to deliver value-added services that clients have come to regard as being of equal or even of greater benefit than sales performance coaching.


These services include:

processes and procedures related to the positioning of the sales function within the overall business in accordance with key financial performance objectives and the dynamics of the business-to-business market.


Salesmanship

Successful Salesmanship – a Profile


Based on a career spanning more than 35 years of professional sales, Ki Consulting’s services are provided by

Bruno Squara.


Prior to launching Ki Consulting, he held senior sales positions with some of the world’s leading information technology and management consulting organisations. His experience includes Rank Xerox, Bell & Howell, i2 Technologies, SAP South Africa and PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting/IBM Business Consulting Services – where as an Associate Partner he held the position of Business Development Director.


During an exceptionally successful sales career he sold successfully into many of South Africa’s largest blue chip organisations. Most importantly, he personally experienced that evolution of selling - from the feature-benefits model of product orientated selling to the current value-driven model of consultative selling.


He is today one of the most field-experienced Sales Performance Coaches in the country with a blue chip client base. He has delivered papers at numerous management and sales conferences including Corporate Annual Sales Conferences.

Ki Consulting coaching philosophy


Introduction and background to the Ki Consulting coaching philosophy


Services, solutions and consulting organisations focused on the complex, highly-competitive business-to-business market are required to spearhead their sales efforts with senior solution or service line teams carrying significant sales and revenue targets.


These teams need to proactively engage with large and complex target market prospects and accounts, creating demand and buying urgency for their solutions and then winning in a competitive bid process that inevitably incorporates stringent compliance and performance standards.


Post-sale the challenge is then to retain and grow the account by creating incremental selling opportunities with the ultimate goal being able to build an annuity income stream – and achieve a “trusted partner status” in the process.


In many instances these organisations are faced with selling challenges that are exacerbated by members of the sales team having come from pure consulting or technical backgrounds. While these individuals may be invaluable “subject-matter” experts in their respective fields, all too often they have limited formal sales training or practical selling experience.


Consequently they are not effective salespeople and therefore are a limiting factor when it comes to the organisation’s ability to achieve the required Top Line with obvious serious negative knock-on business consequences.


To make matters worse, in today’s “New Economy”, professional corporate buyers have significantly changed their approach towards how they “buy and award business”; salespeople and corporate sales functions have no option but to adapt to this change to stand any chance of sales success.


“What got you here – won’t get you there.”

- Marshall Goldsmith


Selling today is a recognised profession requiring, in addition to mandatory industry specific business and technical knowledge, appropriate sales knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours in order to succeed.

Without these traits the respective individual is dependent on luck in order to win – and luck in the modern business and sales world has no part whatsoever to play in business success.


To win today the sales team must know what they’re doing and why!


These are challenges that Ki Consulting successfully addresses in all coaching engagements and that has been the hallmark of client satisfaction for the past 10 years.


Ki Consulting is focused on:


Improving a salesperson’s awareness centred on sales knowledge, understanding and the utilisation of critical sales skills, attitudes and behaviours that form part of the art and science of salesmanship.


Improving sales processes, methodologies and the performance of virtual account team members (such as pre-sales support personnel and subject-matter support specialists) in complex situations that demand that “everyone sells”.


Maximised sales success potential – increasing the probability and predictability of closing key deals, contributing towards achieving and even exceeding organisational sales targets and objectives.


Key features of the holistic approach to sales performance coaching encompasses, among others, the following techniques:


“I have known Bruno since 1994, first as a colleague and later as service provider delivering sales coaching and deal support to our sales teams over multi-year assignments. Bruno has developed an excellent sales coaching methodology that enables sales people to rapidly enhance their performance as well as providing management with appropriate feedback on the sales team's progress and skills development. Through his coaching and mentoring of the sales teams Bruno has greatly assisted in achieving objectives during the development of the challenging public sector and Africa region markets at SAP and was readily accepted by all as part of the team and a member of the extended management. I would highly recommend Bruno to anyone who desires to improve the effectiveness of their sales force.”


John Dekker

Former Managing Director SAP Public Sector & Africa Region

Testimonials

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“Over the last year, Bruno has helped coach the Karabina sales team from being average sales individuals into driven results-orientated sales professionals, with more insight into how to handle complex solution selling situations and deal with customers better. I've been in technology sales since the mid-90's and Bruno and I share similar approaches and thinking. about how best sales people need to professionalize their approach in order to achieve results. Over and above that, Bruno has been my own personal coach and I continue to get the guidance and advice that helps me to be a better leader. Get him into your business and working with your team.”


Heath Turner

Director, Karabina – Microsoft Gold Partner, Customer Engagement and Sales

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“I have worked with Bruno for many years and have the highest regard for his expertise, professionalism and client focus. Bruno delivers exceptional value in bringing new sales staff up to speed, as well as coaching and advising experienced sales executives during difficult sales cycles. He has a deep understanding of complex solution sales processes and his ability to transfer this knowledge and introduce innovative ideas is unrivalled. His contribution at IBM has been invaluable and I highly recommend Bruno and Ki Consulting to any organisation aiming to improve the performance of their sales force.”


Claas Kuehnemann

Former Managing Director SAP Africa Region

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“Bruno is now in his fifth year of an ongoing successful Sales Performance Improvement Program engagement with us at PwC South Africa within our Consulting business including key Senior Forensic & Deals Partners. We have made extensive use of his deep Sales Performance Improvement subject matter expertise and both his wealth of personal sales and sales coaching experiences to enable the transformation of our own Sales Function in pursuit of aggressive year on year sales growth. He has performed both an advisory role and most importantly a personal sales coach and mentoring one too. He has during this time with us coached over sixty of our Partners, Directors and Senior Managers. Successfully so! The value Bruno brings to us is his ability to go way beyond the theory of sales best practise and critical success factors by coaching the application of these on important Client Accounts and on critical, must win, sales pursuits; his sales coaching is very focused on experiential learning thus, maximising his value to his clients and this is where Bruno has been most valuable to us in winning key pursuits. Bruno’s past experience as Sales Director at legacy PwC stood the partnership in good stead as Bruno understand our business environment Bruno is very personable with a style that suits a coach and mentor and has been readily accepted by all. We have no hesitation in recommending him to any sales organisation with complex, business to business, sales teams and challenges.”


Henning Swanepoel

Associate Director at PwC Advisory Africa

March 28, 2019, Henning was a client of Bruno’s

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