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Acclivus is widely acknowledged as a thought leader and pioneer in the fields of sales and service training, leadership, and collaboration.
We design and implement training initiatives to meet your specific performance objectives.

The AIM Process

The AIM Process is how we engage with clients to ensure that we are targeting the exact behaviors and approaches necessary to produce lasting results.

We developed and validated A-I-M through our work with leading organizations such as Comcast, NASDAQ, Emerson, Verizon, and IBM. In every initiative our mission is the same – to measurably improve your relationships, results, and revenue.

Assessment

In the Assessment phase, we start with your business plan—i.e., annual targets for revenue, volume, margin, customer satisfaction, etc. Then, we identify your business challenges and needs. We gather additional insight using our assessment tools, including VitalSigns® and S3 Alignment® surveys and 3×3® Interviews.

The outcome:

  • An objective view of your team’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Insight on the perceptions and attitude that drive the behavior of your sales, support and service people
  • Recommendations on the right solution for your situation

VitalSigns® Surveys

VitalSigns® Surveys yield comprehensive insight on your team’s challenges and current skill levels which can be used by decision makers to determine the next step, provide critical knowledge to instructors, and offer specific direction on how to make the biggest impact on development going forward.

3×3® Interviews

3×3® Interviews typically include structured interviews and field observations with people at three different levels: executive level, manager level, and individual contributor level. In our experience, no single person in an organization has total insight. That’s why a 3×3® approach (pronounced “three by three”) can provide a deeper understanding into the hidden issues affecting the performance of sales, support, and service people in your organization.

S3 Alignment® Surveys

Acclivus can measure alignment between sales, service, and support organizations. One of the few remaining advantages in today’s marketplace is sales, support, and service professionals working together to create value with customers. We call this distinct advantage, S3 Alignment®.

Lumina® Assessments

In utilizing the Lumina Spark model, we will access a framework that aids in self-understanding and rapport-building in a way that is authentic and practical yet easily customizable to suit your needs and values. Based on each person’s Lumina Spark profile, participants will be able to link their unique perspective and style with the Acclivus R3 principles and models for behavior in order to build effective strategies for enhancing collaboration with internal colleagues and with clients.

Implementation

Our goal is long-term results, not just short-term applause. That is why an Acclivus implementation always involves more than simply running great workshops. Effective implementation requires alignment between the Acclivus skills and approaches and the existing sales, service, or coaching environments.

We start by assembling a leadership team and developing a plan for the implementation. Then we predispose both middle managers and front-line participants to ensure greater “call to action” before, during, and after the workshop experience.

The Acclivus reinforcement tools and coaching process help to embed the new skills and strategies into the corporate DNA. This proven AIM Process provides a way to manage all the details and ensures that we deliver tangible business results with long-term impact.

Acclivus offers the following Implementation Services:

  • Initiative Planning: Development of detailed plans for larger initiatives with multiple key players
  • Initiative Management: Daily/weekly execution of the Initiative Plan
  • Coaching Overviews: Course overviews for managers who cannot attend the workshop

Measurement

Acclivus is an industry leader in measuring results. In the past two decades, we’ve conducted more than 400 measurement studies focused on capturing behavioral change and financial results with clients around the globe.

Our measurement methods have proven effective across every program in our curriculum and have been adopted by such quality leaders such as Comcast, Verizon, Emerson, IBM, and Shell.

We offer a number of back-end measurement options. Each measurement service can be implemented by itself or in concert with other services, according to your unique needs.

  • PulseCheck® Surveys: Implemented 60-90 days after an Acclivus workshop, PulseCheck surveys measure both cause and effect. We focus on 10-12 keys skills, the level of manager involvement, program value, and important outcomes such as new relationships, revenue, and results.
  • Bottom-Line Tracking: Bottom-Line Tracking is a highly objective and rigorous way of measuring the impact of Acclivus program implementation. Acclivus analyzes trends in performance and the relationships between new skill application and real business results.
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Acclivus R3 Curriculum

The R3 curriculum represents a complete approach to performance development, beginning with a thorough assessment of your organization’s performance goals, challenges, and needs.

We design and implement training initiatives to meet your specific performance objectives. Initiatives typically include a blend of targeted communication, training events, on-the-job tools, follow through, and coaching. Implementation is an ongoing process. Throughout the initiative, Acclivus tracks the application of skills and strategies and their impact on key business metrics. Measurement ensures that the desired performance results are achieved.

See Our Courses

Measured Results

In the last decade alone, Acclivus has conducted more than 300 measurement studies focused on capturing both changes in behavior and financial results across organizations. Nowhere is our passion for performance more evident than in the results we produce working with our clients.

Here are just a few success stories based on rigorous tracking of results:

Rapid Results
Rapid Results
Customer Loyalty
Customer Loyalty
Customer Service
Customer Service
Revenue Growth
Revenue Growth
Independent ROI Study
Independent ROI Study
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Acclivus R3 Tips

Below is a list of Acclivus R3 Tips. Click to expand.

Recharge your battery by re-establishing your mission

Missionary Zeal? What’s the Mission? I’ve been selling for a long time, and for much of that time I’ve been coaching other sales professionals.
I have to admit that sometimes it can be challenging to feel missionary zeal for every opportunity and at every point during the day. It doesn’t take long, however, for me to remember what makes this work rewarding. It can be a challenge to feel any missionary zeal if you don’t know what the mission is. Ask yourself why you do what you do. Zeal is defined as “reflecting strong, forceful devotion to a specific cause.” as in ‘zeal for the project.’ A good place to begin to understand the mission is with your own company’s mission statement, i.e., “To improve the way the world works and lives.” Try this short exercise. Write down separately what your customer, your supervisor, and your family would say is your “purpose” for the work you do. Looking at your mission from the perspective of those you serve and support can confirm or rekindle your passion. Certainly, each individual must define for themselves what satisfies and motivates them, and when you do, it makes the day to day a lot more enjoyable.

Are you passionate for the work you do? Do you believe strongly in your organization and its products and services? Do you let your passion show? A client once told me that they awarded a contract to my competitor because the competitor “wanted it more.” And I understand that. Who wants to make an important purchase decision from someone who has only moderate enthusiasm for their company or its products? When the customer sees
that we strongly believe in what we are doing, it can be infectious and the customer will more readily advocate on our behalf. Our passion becomes a source of influence in the account. Consider the work you do and ask yourself, “is my passion evident to others?”

A Norwegian psychology professor once shared a bit of wisdom that I have never forgotten. And it has become the basis for one of our most important principles for strengthening customer relationships – and even collegial relationships, for that matter.

He told me, “It is important that your customer like and respect you, but it is much more important that your customer like and respect himself when he is with you.”
The best way to strengthen a relationship, the professor added, is to ensure that the other person is glad to spend time with you. And the best way to make sure people are glad to spend time with you is to give them reason to feel good about themselves whenever they meet with you.

This may seem like obvious advice, but most sales and service professionals don’t follow it. We tend to be so focused on looking smart ourselves and being heroes in our customers’ eyes, that we completely forget about their need to feel smart in their own eyes and to look
like heroes in their own organizations.

When you are with a client or customer, focus on making that customer feel good about herself and she will feel good about you and your company. If there is a problem to be solved, make sure that the customer feels that she is part of the solution, not just an admirer of your cleverness. If there is a smart recommendation to make, try to ensure that the customer plays a key role in crafting the recommendation. And, of course, listen and acknowledge with genuine interest.

And by the way, all the above applies to how we should treat family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Everyone will like you more if they like themselves when they are with you.

If you are reading this, you probably resolved to change your behavior or improve your performance this year. Statistics are not in your favor. The entire health club industry relies on people failing to follow through on their resolutions (and yet taking a long, long time to admit failure).

Making a change is not so much a matter of discipline as it is a matter of habit. And any habit, by definition, wants to stick around. The tried and true method for changing a habit is to take baby steps, rather than relying on willpower. At Acclivus we refer to that process as
successive approximation, getting a little closer each day to the desired behavior. But if changing a habit is all about self denial (even a little at a time) it can become tiresome and we can get bored with the slow progress. So rather than denying yourself at all, try embracing a new behavior that is inconsistent with the current behavior. In my case, when I was finally able to quit smoking after years of failure, it was because I took up running and fell in love with it. By focusing on getting better and better at that activity, I was less and less tempted to suck toxins into my lungs.

So make sure your goal is clear and specific, take it a day at a time, and focus on the positive behavior you are gaining, not the undesirable behavior you are losing.

Developing influence requires effective communication, and effective communication begins with listening.

Listening is command central for effective communication. No other skill is as powerful or as necessary for developing understanding− and for communicating a desire to understand.

Perhaps the most common block to effective communication is impatience. So whatever your objective or agenda is, suspend it long enough to focus on what the other individual is saying and feeling. And display patience.

Research & Insights

Below is a list of Acclivus R3 research articles and insightful information.

Creating Value: Business-with-Business

A Decade of Insight

In our highly competitive business-with-business landscape, the true path to building strong relationships, creating optimal results, and generating ongoing, profitable revenue is by Creating Value.

This report includes insights from research studies with over 200 organizations who have partnered with Acclivus to measure the beyond-the-obvious value that sales and service organizations can provide in every stage of their customers’ buying process.

Download PDF

The Coaching Connection in a Virtual World

How High-Performing Manager Influence Behavior and Increase Revenue in a Rapidly Changing and Chaotic World

Sales and service professionals work more independently and with less direct supervision than ever before. They are facing unprecedented change, complexity, and competition. In this environment, our research indicates the the role of a manager has become more critical to achieving and exceeding their performance goals.

In this research with more than 300 global partnering organizations, we reveal the critical key for ensuring managers’ success in inspiring and enabling their teams to achieve their R3 mission – strong Relationships, optimal Results, and ongoing, profitable Revenue.

Download PDF

Developing Courage in the Workplace

An Acclivus Research Report

Courage is the ability and willingness to confront fear, uncertainty, intimidation, or difficulty on the job.

Never before has courage been such a critical factor in the success of thriving organizations and the individuals within them.

Acclivus R3 Solutions partnered with Training Industry, Inc. to survey 212 organizations and more than 100,000 individuals to identify best practices for developing courage in the workplace.

Download PDF

The Human Factor

An Article by Caroline Murphy, Acclivus President

This is a wonderful time in the evolution of the human experience. Technological advancements continue to abound and astound. Seemingly everything we could ever want is at our fingertips. More and more, as humans come to depend on digital solutions and artificial intelligence, digital solutions and artificial intelligence become dependable. So, it is natural that when it comes to performance development, more and more companies are looking for e-learning options when weighing the pros and cons of sales training.

Read Article Download PDF

From One Brain to Another:
What We’ve Learned About Learning

An Acclivus Research Report

If we want to teach the brain efficiently, we need to know how it works. Fortunately, we are learning much more about how the brain works through recent advances in neuroscience. And some training organizations are effectively incorporating key findings into their course designs and teaching techniques.

Acclivus has been studying neuroscience, looking for those discoveries that most concern learning and other areas of human performance. In the research report, From One Brain to Another: “What We’ve Learned About Learning,” we reveal insights that are most pertinent to learning professionals.

Download PDF

Service Skills: Key to Profitablilty

An Acclivus Research Report

Many leading companies are realizing that customer service and field technicians have become the primary means of maintaining communication with customers and clients. And service professionals are often in the best position to positively influence customer perceptions of the value of the business relationship. This means that the service professionals may have the greatest impact on customer loyalty and ongoing, profitable revenue.

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