*Keynotes*

The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation

This keynote will detail how almost any average-performing rep, once equipped with the right tools, can successfully reframe customers’ expectations and deliver a distinctive purchase experience that drives higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.

What’s the secret to sales success? If you’re like most business leaders, you’d say it’s fundamentally about relationships...and you’d be wrong. The best salespeople don’t just build relationships with customers. They challenge them.
   The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average-performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades.

   Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors’ study found that every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one -- the Challenger -- delivers consistently high performance.
   Instead of bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer’s specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer’s every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale.

   The things that make Challengers unique are replicable and teachable to the average sales rep. Once you understand how to identify the Challengers in your organization, you can model their approach and embed it throughout your sales force.

C-Suite Conversations: Beyond the GC

This keynote session will help you prepare your firm for the new business environment, where extending corporate relationships beyond the general counsel (GC) can increase revenue and reduce competition.

The business world in 2023 and 2024 will be just as volatile and uncertain as it is today. Maybe more so.

Your current and prospective clients are hungry for information, understanding, and wisdom. And they’re happy to get it from any trusted source. How do you gain a competitive edge over other firms and management consultancies (think: Big 4)? Make sure your firm chooses to engage in these business-focused conversations with the C-suite.

In this keynote session, you will learn why these conversations matter now more than ever, why management consultancies have a strong advantage, and what your law firm can do to win trust, fend off the competition, and turn C-level conversations into opportunities for revenue growth.

A Tale of Three Pipelines: How Your Sales, Service, and Cross-Selling Pipelines Differ & How to Maximize Them

presented by
David Ackert, Founder & CEO, Ackert, Inc. | PipelinePLUS
& LSSO Founding SSSME Board Member

Attendees can expect an interactive session on best practices related to maximizing the three pipelines in a legal practice: Origination, Service, and Expansion.

• Which pipeline gets the most attention? Which gets the least?
• How do/should you manage them differently?
• Who is/should be responsible for managing each?
• How do you measure activity/impact (origination, billable hour quotas, proliferation, etc.)?
• How do you ensure the pursuit of new business doesn't get abandoned during a down economy when attention tends to be on ensuring current clients don't flee?
• What role should lawyers be expected to play (and do how do you get them to comply)?

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