Client Abstracts

PUBLIC SPEAKING

Gerry Parran Speaks at Lewis University Graduate School Commencement, December 15, 2007:

Mr. Parran addressed Lewis University's masters degree recipients at Lewis's main campus in Romeoville, IL, on the value of professional networking to maintain and develop business contacts in the marketplace.

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For an International Telecommunications Corporation:

Situation: With the acquisition of a large international telecommunications company by a domestic telecommunications corporation, the performance and motivation of the sales forces during the period of time immediately following the acquisition was suffering. Executive sales management was seeking approaches to effectively manage and motivate the combined sales forces to achieve their goals.

Value Delivered: Mr. Parran delivered a presentation leveraging his own executive sales management experience with liberal doses of practical, hands-on techniques to manage and motivate sales people during periods of uncertainty.

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SALES CONSULTING

For an Information Technology Services Firm:

Situation: This firm had identified an opportunity to bid on a business process outsourcing project valued at $3M over three years for a F500 financial services organization. Although the prospective client's requirements were similar to the firm's normal scope of services, there were some very critical differences. The challenge was to design a service offering to meet the client's requirements and to create a compelling value proposition to secure the business. There was no one in the firm who had the capabilities to lead this effort to design the service offering and develop the value proposition.

Value Delivered: Due to his knowledge of the prospective client, his experience in service line development and value proposition creation, Gerry Parran was engaged to lead this effort to secure the business. Gerry created a pursuit plan which included meeting with the client organization's executive in charge to understand the requirements of the project, qualify the opportunity, obtain the client's return on investment and other financial objectives, ascertain the decision making process and timeline, identify the economic, user, and techical buyers along with the preferences and biases of each, and identify 'red flags' that exist. Working with the pursuit team, Gerry developed business processes and approaches which were then presented to the client in a value proposition document. Gerry also accompanied the pursuit team on meetings with the client to provide guidance.

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For a Management Consulting and Strategy Firm:

Business Situation: The partners of the business made the decision to grow their business organically. The firm's financial position was strong. However, a loss of any client, even one client, would place the firm in a difficult financial situation. Therefore, additional clients needed to be secured. Until this point in the firm's history, the firm's partners had struggled to gain the few clients they had.

Business Challenge: The firm's partners core competencies were their subject matter expertise and their ability to deliver work. When an opportunity to obtain a new client was identified, all resources were diverted from client projects and assigned to the pursuit of the prospective client. Therefore, the partners:

• Realized that they were unable to provide the sales leadership necessary to grow the business themselves,
• Understood their time was better spent delivering work to their clients than on finding and closing new client opportunities
• Saw the value in retaining the services of a highly experienced sales leader, Gerry Parran, to improve the effectiveness of their sales efforts by leveraging proven sales tools, methods, and approaches.

Value Delivered: Gerry Parran, retained as the Vice President of Client Development on an outsourced basis, conducted market research, developed territory and account penetration plans, directed inside and outside sales programs, and provided sales leadership to the firm. Gerry's efforts resulted in new client engagements, a high visibility marketing program in partnership with the Executives' Club of Chicago, and the introduction of the firm's partners to executives who agreed to serve on the firm's board of advisors.

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For a Business Services Firm:

Business Challenge: This firm's leadership had made the decision to grow the firm organically. As part of this effort, they were aggressively seeking ways to obtain new clients.

Value Delivered: Gerry Parran was asked to leverage his experience in referral marketing to reduce their sales cycle and improve their results. As a result of Gerry's intervention, the firm closed a new client in one call and was conducting business within one month. In addition, Gerry worked with this services firm to target and penetrate a $2B financial services firm. As a result of working with Gerry, the services firm was quickly able to obtain a conference call and a follow-up meeting with a Senior Vice President / Group Executive who agreed to assist them radiate out into the organization.

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