Frito-Lay

For the past 2 years, Frito-Lay Canada has been working with Optimé on building sales capabilities with our Key Account Teams across the country, and I’d like to give you an update and share our progress.

The engagement with Optimé is part of our broader “Collaborate to Grow” strategy, as we realized that we needed to evolve as a Sales function in order to continue to deliver leading business results.  The Transformational Selling agenda that your Team brought forward made it clear that success lies in making the leap from transactional selling to transformational selling, and the Playing Catch approach unlocked practical insights on how to better identify and satisfy the needs of our customers.

As our partnership evolved, we have taken advantage of training in Objection Handling using the ARUCON method, and have now embarked on the road to Customer Blueprinting and incorporating the concept of the “Customer General Manager”. 

We evaluate our investment in Optimé training using 3 success criteria:  (1) Business Results (2) Customer Results (3) People Results.  Recognizing that training is a journey, the latest results on all 3 fronts have been positive indicators that our partnership is making a difference.  Business results have accelerated, with key Customer accomplishments and feedback being a significant part of that formula.  Our top rankings in the recent 2006 Advantage Performance Monitor survey - as determined by key customers - directly reflect this success.  And our Teams are telling us that the investment in their capabilities is valued – both from favorable roundtable and conference survey results, as well as in how they have embraced the behaviours in the way they work.

I would also want to highlight the outstanding collaboration and commitment that we have received from Hugues Gibeault and Valerie Walls.  Their willingness to spend the extra time to understand our business objectives and integrate them into our training agenda has earned the respect of our people.  They are seen as partners in our success.

Thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to our Team development at FLC.

Vice President – National Sales

Frito-Lay Canada

Vincor International

As we head into the home stretch of our multi year partnership, it’s really remarkable to see how far our sales community has evolved in 2 ½ short years and I am convinced that this transition would not have happened had I pursued another vendor or a strategy of sales training one-offs. When the goal is to not only increase productivity but facilitate a much broader cultural shift, any potential third party solution must assume a high level of trust and customization, which can only happen over time. It’s been my experience that without this as the foundation it becomes next to impossible to hardwire the learning. Two years ago you sold me on the power of the partnership and the results of our partnership speak for themselves. Higher retention rates versus the industry average, improved territory productivity, a 20% increase in customer satisfaction scores and a sales team that is firmly routed in a customer-centric culture.

As I’ve said before, you know you’ve hit the mark when the client views you more as an integral part of the team versus the consulting solution du jour.

Keep pushing the multi-year model, it works!  And I firmly believe that it represents Optimé’s key point of differentiation versus the competitive set.

Vice President, Sales
Vincor Canada

AG Hair Cosmetics

This is to thank you for the outstanding contribution the Optimé Training and Development has made witihin our organization.

The tangible and intangible results we have seen fron the comprehensive program we developed together have been incredible and have set the stage for continued and sustainable growth witihn our company.

In the past 4 months since we conducted the coaching and leadership training, our corporation sales have increased 16% over previous year and are 4% ahead of plan. More importantly the changes in behaviour we have seen from the partcipants have been nothing short of transformational. We have also been delighted by continued, unsolicited feedback from people reporting to the participants, that they are experiencing coaching and leadership like never before. And we are also seeing an incredible spillover effect whereby the new found confidence and skills the participants learned are making them more entrepreneurial and decisive in their daily duties.

As as smaller company with limited resources, the investment we made to partner with Optimé was significant but I can tuly say the results so far have been more than worth the investment.

I would also like to thank you personally and the design team at Optimé for really taking the time to understand our people, our company and our culture in order to build a program that has given us maximum impact.

Looking forward to continued success together.

Vice President of Sales and Marketing

AG Hair Cosmetics

Bausch & Lomb

This is to share with you some of the results from your work with our Commercial Vision Care Sales Organization and the CLAD Group over the past 2 years.

As you know, one of the true measures of training and development success is the impact on business results. I am pleased to report that the most recent sales trends in Bausch & Lomb Canada, business was up over 40% in Western Canada , 24% in Ontario and 17% in Quebec , a growth rate well above that of the industry. The impact to our people and sales development partnership has also been seen through the high engagement of our people at Sales meetings, follow up coaching and role playing that have contributed to sustaining the learning and changing their behavior. You very quickly built strong rapport and credibility with people in our Sales Organization - I would attribute this to your background as Sales practitioners, and to your sincere desire to help people grow their skills and grow the business.

Based on these results, earlier this year I retained Optimé to design and deliver a customized Leadership Development program for country Leaders in our Canada Latin America Division, and again I can say that the early results have been excellent. There has been strong buy-in to the process, high level of participant engagement, very practical and customized learning as well as early indications of improvement in the region, working more closely as a High Performance Team. I just received the results of our Viewpoints survey that measures the Employee Commitment Index, a measurement that has been correlated to a company's financial returns. The results for the Canada and Latin America leadership team was 89%, well above the 75% considered world-class by the company that conducts this type of research.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment and support. I look forward to a continued, mutually beneficial partnership with you and Optimé.

Vice President
Canada Latin America Region

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment 

For the past 2 years, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment has been calling on Optimé to design and deliver a customized Leadership Development program.  This program, entitled "Building Champions", has been rolled out to all our Managers, Directors and Senior Leaders and we have been very pleased with the results.

Optimé has demonstrated a high level of professionalism along with strong curriculum design and delivery capabilities.  Through the integration of this Leadership initiative to our performance management process, we are seeing greater focus on individual development, along with greater alignment of objectives with our business goals.

Recently, Optimé introduced us to a proven on-line learning solution to support the program, and your assistance in consulting with us on the integration and launch of this powerful resource has been invaluable.

In addition, Optimé personnel provided invaluable consulting expertise to support the development of our educational strategy, as well as working with our Senior Leaders to get them on side.

I believe that the Building Champions program and HMM will better position MLS&E for future growth and success, in particular in supporting our Management Team to become more effective coaches.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment and support to develop our Leaders.

VP People
Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment

Adams, Division of Warner-Lambert Canada Inc.

This is to provide thanks and congratulations for a fantastic job with our Account Business Manager training event in April.

Optimé’s support was instrumental in the design of the Customer Development System, and the launch of it to the Account Team. Your guidance and hands on assistance was top quality through the Train the Trainer and regional rollout of the session.

I look forward to continued work with you and all of Optimé’s team. Your coaching, consulting and training support exceeded my high expectations. Thanks for the KYSS service.

Director of Human Resources

Bell

This is a short note to thank you for your on-going support and guidance in helping us manage change.

To date, you have led training sessions for over 500 Bell employees and overall the course ratings have been truly outstanding.

Your high energy level and lively presentation cannot be ignored as a key success factor of the sessions. Our people leave with a spirit of inspiration and enthusiasm for the adventure they are about to undertake. But, most importantly they develop a renewed focus on our customers along with a tremendous desire to delight them.

Manager, Training & Development

Campbell’s Soup

Thanks for the exceptional “Communication/Exceeding Customer Expectations”, training sessions.

It was apparent that you “practice what you preach”, as your team interviewed key personnel to determine their specific corporate needs and then proceeded to “Exceed our Expectations”, with a high energy, interactive 2 days!

The course will also extend beyond the closing remarks with practical models and templates to ensure continuity and implementation!

Sales Director

GTS Motivations

I am writing this quick note to tell you how impressed we all were with Tom and Optimé’s presentation on Sunday morning.

Having spent a considerable amount of time in ballrooms with a variety of speakers, I had certain expectations of what was to come, but your presentation took me right off my feet. The content, the style, the delivery was outstanding. I found myself reviewing your material several days later while on vacation. I still find myself thinking about it from time to time.

Please rest assured that I will be “singing the tune” to all of my clients. I believe your product is superior to most that is available today.

It was a pleasure working with you and I look forward to continuing to do so in the near future.

Director of Sales

Hilton Hotels

Thank you so much for organizing and staging the 2004 Hilton Family GTA Sales Championship™ last week in Toronto. Your time and dedication to deliver a unique and comprehensive program really paid off!

The positive feedback we have received to date indicates that the Championship was a huge success. For example, 93% of participants rated the program their most engaging, inspiring and impactful sales training experience ever!

The Sales Championship is different from anything I have seen - a robust sales-focused training exercise that combines proven learning content, a highly charged competitive environment, recognition and achievement awards, insightful behavioral assessment, powerful feedback from customers and peers after the competition - all fully integrated into an immersive experience!

We also appreciate your diligent follow up to reinforce the key Championship concepts and assessments. This support will assist us in ensuring we drive sustainable change in behavior and improved sales performance as a result. Also as discussed, we see a significant opportunity to stage future Sales Championships to build continuity, excitement and further benchmark the development of Hilton Family sales personnel.

I would highly recommend this dynamic, inspiring and meaningful program to any corporation or individual.

Thanks again for your commitment and support.

Regional Vice President of Sales & Marketing
Hilton Hotels

Iberia Foods Corporation, Division of Unilever/Bestfoods

This letter is to thank Optimé and yourself for your support of the Unilever / Bestfoods business development program over the past year.

I am truly amazed at the contribution the Optimé has made in the following three areas:

1. Diagnostic: The complete Organizational effectiveness diagnostic was right on the money. You created a clear picture of a very complicated and difficult situation and recommended the appropriate course of action. As I look back on your recommendations, it is incredible how accurate and appropriate they were in addressing our situation.
2. Learning Programs: These have been effectively delivered and importantly, have resulted in a charge in the behavior in how we go to market. Your help and guidance in putting this learning to work was critical for our success.
3. Business Results: Despite a very difficult year, we were able to significantly over-deliver on our 2001 Sales Plan.

Tom, thank you again for your contribution to our success. We look forward to working with you and your team in the future.

Vice President of Sales

ICOM Information & Communications Inc.

“This is a quick note to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ for your contributions to our journey to ‘get inside our customers heads’ and become ‘great orchestra leaders.’

Once again you reminded me how important it is to get the culture ‘right’, not just the content. What do I mean? Well, the solution-selling model is truly outstanding content (and a person could likely spend an entire career investigating and mastering the important nuances of each step in the process)! However, what enabled the learning to really start to ‘stick’ was NOT just the elegance and logic of the content, but the environment that it was learned in.

Your team created a great environment for our Sales team. You brought tremendous insight, energy, and enthusiasm to your work – and people appreciate that. Also, you showed genuine caring for the teams and the individuals’ learning – and people really appreciated that.

The culture at Optimé is one that creates great facilitators like each of you. You’re inspiring role models for our team. Strong content, partnered with you as genuine, energizing role models, enabled your workshop to create real growth at ICOM in the 3 areas you’re striving for: our company, our business and for individuals.”

Vice President, Sales and Client Service

Labatt Breweries

“Your leadership and partnership in the development and roll-out of the Labatt Way to Sell has been outstanding. The feedback internally has been excellent. As the technical skills of our sales force continue to improve so too will the business results in the field.

Your team’s commitment to our ongoing needs has been fantastic throughout all phases of the project – from design to delivery. In addition, your perspective and insight on the role of scorecarding and technology for the purpose of improving the effectiveness of our training program is especially important as we build the Labatt Way to Manage.”

Manager, Sales & Marketing Training

Quaker Tropicana Gatorade

The value you brought to the integration and launch of the new QTG customer organization will surely enable us to achieve fantastic success.

It has been my personal pleasure to work with each of you throughout this period – your insights, commitment, supreme calmness during stress, organizational ability and downright niceness is to be commended.

"P.S. I had a FANTASTIC business and personal experience at the National Meeting. Thanks!"

Group Product Manager

President's Choice Financial

During the past year you and your team at Optimé have been instrumental at providing leading-edge training for the Customer Association and Customer Champions at Presidents Choice Financial (PCF). On behalf of Loblaws, CIBC and RPG I would like to thank you for your outstanding contribution to the successful roll-out of PCF in its test-sites across Canada. Your enthusiasm, content and delivery were very well received by all the participants. Specifically, your tailored role-plays and sales experience gave a great deal of credibility to your message.

We very much look forward to a prosperous partnership on this project as it rolls forward and will seek to support each other on subsequent initiatives. The unique and tailored approach you provided made it work for us. Thank you again for your expertise and your dedicated focus on our specific project.

President
Retail Performance Group

Telus Enterprise Solutions

The purpose of this letter is to thank you and your team for the outstanding support provided through the Soft-tech professional relationship skill development program. Soft-tech has greatly contributed to our team’s achievement of an industry leading level of call resolution on first contact and our highest-ever customer service ratings.

By way of background, the TELUS Enterprise Solutions Customer Contact Center has maintained a leadership position in providing excellent help desk services. Over the past year, our help desk analysts and managers participated in Soft-tech training. We found the program to be highly customized to our requirements and the delivery to be very focused on long-term results.

As well as providing excellent customer service, the Customer Service Center team now has skills they will use at home and with each other. This results in happier, more productive employees. The help desk industry is very stressful, average staff turnover is a year to eighteen months. Soft-tech training has given our team the ability to turn every customer interaction into a positive experience. One of the many benefits is a less than 5% staff turnover. We estimate the cost to train a new employee to a level where we believe they can start to take calls is fifty thousand dollars. The ‘cost benefits’ of this program are substantial. We only have to retain two employees to get our return on investment.

Director, Customer Contact

Warner-Lambert Consumer Healthcare

“I am sure that you receive many responses to the success of your programs; however, I felt compelled to send this letter to you.

I presented our new Benylin products to my account the other day and it was a success. I had incorporated all of the key learning tools we were taught in the session and honestly, I could not have asked for a better meeting. I successfully listed all 4 new products and attained agreement on all promotions and displayers I presented.

As pre-work to my presentation, I left our session on Friday and gave my account a call. We spent over an hour and a half pitching and catching about the upcoming meeting. I had gained enough insight through this call that I completely reworked my presentation into what he said he was looking for.

I won’t go into details but when our meeting wrapped up and he said ‘You have put together a great presentation that shows that Warner Lambert is not only bringing innovative new products into the market…it seems as though you have changed your mindset. Is your company more focused on the consumer or is that just you? If it is your company I am glad, but surprised.’

To me, this proved that we needed to make a change and it looks as though I have the first steps. I have been able to build some credibility with my account and will look forward to our future meetings to take this to the next level.

Again, it was a fantastic session. I look forward to gaining more insight from you and your team in the future.”

Key Account Manager

Warner-Lambert Consumer Healthcare

I would like to acknowledge the excellent job you did for us at our recent National Meeting.

The wind up morning was extremely motivational and really hit he right cord with our participants. It got high marks from those in attendance and I am still getting positive comments. I liked the mix of business and personal and I agree that by addressing both needs, you get maximum impact.

We have had a number of comments from participants, which lead us to believe that this has been our most successful National Business Meeting ever. Thank you for helping to make this meeting so successful.

Director of Organizational Effectiveness

Schick

"We're very pleased with the outcomes from last week's session. We are better prepared to deal with the changes that will happen...  I know that the session will stick to the ribs and people will start doing things differently starting today (which is my acid test on practicality/applicability of training).  I have no doubt that our work with Optimé will generate a great ROI for us.  You've got excellent content and you know how to serve it up in an engaging way - keep up the great work.  We look forward to working with your firm again in the future."

General Manager

Yellow Pages Group

From the beginning of our business relationship, you demonstrated a strong sense of professionalism by insisting to validate your mandate through your own diagnostic assessment before designing and delivering our customized training. Now I realize that you were practicing what you preach! Optimé uncovered many strategic and practical insights that have greatly contributed to a successful performance development program for our managers.

Optimé designed a three phase program as the foundation to transforming the culture and developing the skills and competencies of managers to a new standard of performance. The average overall participant rating for each of the training workshops has been 4.7 out of 5.0. Having attended all workshops, I can certainly attest to the fact that Optimé creates a vibrant, positive and high-energy learning environment that has engaged managers in the learning process.

Through a combination of course exams, leadership/coaching self-assessments, pre-work, participant evaluations and skills demonstration assessments, our managers and the company have been provided with ongoing feedback to maximize individual learning and development. Our Sales Management needed to evolve from the "super sales rep syndrome" to real leaders and coaches. I can assure you that, according to the feedback from both regions, you provided them with the proper ammunition to face the challenges of a recently sold company that is now facing competition.

General Director, Marketing - Sales Training

National Convenience Stores Distributors Association

Thank you for your contribution as a keynote speaker at our 47 th Annual Convention in Palm Springs, California, this past November.

Your "Think Big.Win Big with Customers " presentation was very well received, and very appropriate given our theme of Being Connected . The content was very targeted to the needs of our members in providing actionable and strategic insights on best practices in sales and customer development, helping them evolve from transactional to transforming selling. This will certainly benefit our members as they work to increase their business results.

Sample participant comments included: "Relevant and excellent! Great! By far the best speaker in all the conventions I have attended! Great speaker."

Again, thank you for sharing your insights and experience with our members. We look forward to discussing how Optimé can be involved in the next year's Convention!

President

The Pepsi Bottling Group

Thank you and your organization for the recent work that you did with the Toronto Market Unit in providing P.E.P.S.I. training to all our KAMs, PCRs, and NBSRs.

I was particularly pleased with your ability to work closely with our management team to ensure program integrity with customization. Through working with our management team in advance, you ensured the integrity of the program while understanding the unique nature of the needs within the Toronto Market Unit. Specifically, the additions of "Playing Catch" (a prospecting format for our restaurant group) and the streamlining of the presentation format to meet the needs of a sales representative who makes 10 calls per day, enhanced our existing program.

Finally, thank you for providing a 'real-life' perspective through your knowledge of the industry and further by having the work and role plays be specific to actual presentations that our group will be making.

Human Resources Manager