Employment & Contract Opportunities
Leadership Strategies - The Facilitation Company - is the leading provider of professional facilitators and facilitation training in the country. Our facilitators are called upon to lead important executive retreats, strategy sessions, focus groups, conferences and other group sessions. We also provide training classes in facilitation skills, consulting and leadership.
We utilize full-time employees and part-time contractors to deliver services to our U.S. and international clients. Employees have a base salary and incentives, with incentives contributing as much as 50% of total compensation. Contractors are compensated per event, with additional incentives related to participating in sales or referral activities.
Listed below are our currently open positions.
SALES SPECIALISTS (2 positions available)
- Are you a real go-getter, smart, and a fast learner?
- Do you have 1-3 years of experience selling to business customers?
- Are you looking for an opportunity to build your income and sales skills while working closely with a highly successful sales professional?
If so, our sales specialist position might be right for you.
We are currently seeking two sales specialists who will work closely with regional sales managers to grow our business.
As a sales specialist you report directly to one or more regional sales managers. Your ultimate objective each month is to maximize your commissions by supporting your regional sales manager in closing business through our public (open enrollment) classes, private (onsite) classes, and meeting facilitation services. In achieving this objective, you are responsible for a number of activities.
- Ensure that each public class scheduled in your region is filled and includes, at a minimum, the number of participants to avoid cancellation.
- Follow up on all leads provided through the Internet within 24 hours, through in-house personnel within 48 hours, and through webinars, the newsletter and other sources within one week.
- Follow up with public class attendees from the prior month within one week of the class to seek referrals and other opportunities.
- Prospect and perform mailings/telephone follow-up to targeted lists.
- Perform administrative activities to support your regional sales manager, including timely updating of engagement summaries and tracking all activities in the CRM system.
- Arrange briefings, demonstrations, brown-baggers, presentations to get facilitators in front of clients.
- Average at least 40 telephone sales call per day.
- Moderate webinars, attend trade shows, increase skills through training, attend association meetings of facilitators and other outside activities as your regional sales manager deems beneficial.
This is primarily an inside sales position with 50% or more of your day spent interacting with clients and potential clients over the phone.
Those who are successful in the sales support position, have the opportunity over time to become regional sales manager.
Skills
The successful candidates will know how to do the following.
- ENTHUSIASTICALLY ENGAGE people in conversation by asking questions to identify their goals and needs. This is not a low energy position. Nor is it ideal for those who love to hear themselves talk.
- GAIN YOUR CUSTOMER’S TRUST; establish expectations; and follow through on those expectations.
- BE POSITIVELY PERSISTENT. You will be fortunate to close 1 out of 20. If rejection is a problem for you, this is not the place.
- PROVIDE DETAIL follow-up. We insist on the use of our CRM system for tracking progress with leads. If you have problems with the details, we are not a good fit for your talents.
- BE PROACTIVE in seeking out new opportunities and growing the territory. If you are reluctant to pick up the phone or have trouble asking for referrals, inquire elsewhere.
- EXCEL AS A TEAM MEMBER. You and your regional sales manager will develop a strong working relationship that allows both of you to maximize your incomes. Your regional sales manager is highly vested in ensuring you are successful and part of your compensation is tied to the level of success your sales manager experiences.
- Most importantly, BE A COACHABLE LEARNER. No one is perfect and we find that everyone’s better when they recognize the areas in which they need to improve. If you can’t identify one or two areas you are working on improving right now, or if you are afraid to admit mistakes you’ve made in the past and what you learned from them, or if you can’t name any changes you have made based on feedback you have received, we are definitely not the place for you.
Experience
Mandatory
- At least one-to-three years of direct sales experience
- At least one year in a position requiring heavy prospecting activity
Desirable
- At least one year selling in a service industry
- At least one year experience utilizing customer centric selling, solution selling, or some other structured consultative sales methodology
- At least one year selling training or consulting services
- At least one year in a small business with less than $10 million in revenue
Compensation
Base salary - $36K, with commissions and bonuses, expect $45-75K based on performance.
Want to Maximize Your Chance of Landing This Position?
Send your resume AND a narrative letter that responds to the following items to personnel@leadstrat.com:
- Growing a territory: Tell us about your most successful sales position: the result you achieved and how you achieved them.
- Engaging clients: We would like to get an idea of your ability to engage prospects over the phone. Choose a product that you have sold in the past, and give us the 2-to-5 sentences you would use if you were contacting a prospect for the first time about that product.
- Coachable learner: Tell us about a change you have made in the past two years in the way you sale based on feedback you have received.
- Experience:
Describe your experience in those areas sited in the “Experience Mandatory” section above. Also describe your experience for any of the “Desirable” areas you meet. Use bullet points and give dates, quota performance, etc.
We recognize that we are asking you for a lot of information. However, by answering the questions in your narrative letter, you will demonstrate that you understand our needs and are a good fit for this position.
If you send us a standard cover letter that describes your skills without responding to our specific needs, we will likely assume that this position is not suitable for you.
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FACILITATORS
Our business continues to expand both in the U.S. and abroad. To better serve our clients, we are seeking dynamic, warm, proactive independent contractors with at least five years experience in training and meeting facilitation, who reside in one of the following cities:
- Chicago
- London (anticipated need in 6-12 months)
- Sydney
- Washington D.C.
Facilitator Qualifications
Since we often facilitate executive strategy sessions as well as train other facilitators, we try to hire people who might be considered among the top in our profession. If you often hear, "You're the best I've ever seen," we are interested in speaking with you! Certification by the International Association of Facilitators is a plus.
You may already be aware that great trainers do not necessarily make great meeting facilitators. Trainers frequently lack the intense analytic, questioning and listening skills required for directing a facilitated discussion. Likewise, great meeting facilitators do not necessarily make great trainers. Meeting facilitators can lack the superb presentation skills and energetic delivery often characteristic of great trainers. Successful candidates will likely be superb in both environments.
The key qualities we are seeking:
- Love of people and a sincere desire to be of help
- Dynamic, energetic delivery
- Strong analytic skills (i.e., the ability to rapidly compare, contrast, and translate to action)
- Superb questioning and listening skills
- Warm, personable communication style
- Boardroom presence (i.e., the ability to project confidence and authority as needed)
- A knowledge of self, your needs and your impact on others
- At least five years experience as a meeting facilitator/trainer, with at least one full year in each discipline
- At least two years as an internal or external consultant with a minimum of ten discrete consulting projects
- Experience facilitating IT requirements, workflow design, data or process modeling is a plus
Compensation
Following an intensive certification process to learn to teach our facilitation methodology, "The Effective Facilitator," you will deliver training and meeting facilitation services to our clients on an as-needed basis. Contractors are typically utilized from 3-8 days per month. There are several components to compensation.
- Training fees are up to US $1000 per day after completion of certification.
- Meeting facilitation fees range from US$800 to US$1200 per day depending upon discounts to the client and your experience level in our methodologies.
- Expenses are typically covered by our clients.
- We pay a computed rate (US$40-50/hour) for travel time outside of your metropolitan area.
- You can receive from 1 to 3% of total fees for assisting in a sale.
You can receive up to 14% of total fees for leading a sale to a first-time client, and up to 7% of total fees for any additional sales to that client, regardless of your involvement in the sale, during the subsequent 12 months.
Selection Process
Our certification program is very intensive, as you will see below. Therefore it is essential that we select candidates who have a very high likelihood of success. Accordingly, the selection process is intended to allow both Leadership Strategies and you to carefully evaluate if there is an appropriate fit. Approximately 1 out 5 who indicate an initial interest become certification candidates.
To become a certification candidate requires four steps.
Step 1.
Send a cover letter and resume to Richard Smith describing your experience and qualifications with respect to the key qualities described above.
Step 2.
Within three weeks, we will contact you concerning our interest in proceeding forward. If appropriate we will hold an initial interview to better assess fit for the type of work we do.
Step 3.
Following a successful initial interview, we will provide you a sample instructional video tape and detailed materials which will allow you to prepare to teach a module of our facilitation class. The materials we send you will include the relevant portions of the instructor and participant manuals and the evaluation criteria we will use in reviewing your instruction/facilitation. Other candidates have told us the preparation requires 2-4 hours.
Step 4.
If you are in proximity to our center in Atlanta, we will schedule a date for you to visit with us to demonstrate a 30-45 minute segment of the module you prepared. If you are remote from our existing center, we ask that you create a VHS-formatted video tape of you teaching the module to two or three of your friends, family members or acquaintances. Whether done in person, or remotely, you will receive detailed feedback on your instruction/facilitation. Numerous prior candidates have indicated that the detailed feedback was highly valuable, even if they were not selected to continue into the certification process.
Based on our evaluation of your abilities with our material and your continued interest in going forward, you will become a certification candidate and begin the certification process.
Certification Process
Upon your selection as a certification candidate, the certification process requires the following:
- Attend The Effective Facilitator course as a full participant.
- Review instructional videotapes and prepare to teach Sequence A (or B) of the course. (Each sequence represents half of the modules of the course.)
- Participate in a one-day, one-on-one session with a certified instructor in which you present and receive detailed feedback on the course sequence you prepared.
- Serve as a co-instructor for a full offering of the course (3-days). In the co-instructor role, the certification candidate teaches the sequence previously prepared. A certified instructor serves as a co-instructor or observer/coach for the class session. The certified instructor provides you with written feedback and rating of performance following each module.
- Review instructional videotapes and prepare to teach the sequence not previously taught.
- Participate in a one-day, one-on-one session with a certified instructor in which you present and receive detailed feedback on the course sequence you prepared.
- Serve as a co-instructor for another full offering of the course,teaching the sequence not previously taught. As before, a certified instructor serves as a co-instructor or observer/coach for the class session. The certified instructor provides you with written feedback and rating of performance.
- Receive a satisfactory rating of performance by the certified instructor following the second co-instruction. This completes initial certification.
During the initial certification process, you receive US$400 for each day that you are co-instructing (Total: US$2400). Upon certification, you are eligible for training and facilitation assignments at the compensation rates described above.
Leadership Strategies offers over a dozen programs to our clients. The initial certification in facilitation serves as the foundation and covers the programs that account for approximately 40% of our revenues. Subsequent certifications, in such areas as strategic planning and consulting skills training, are considerably less intensive.
What Next?
If after reading this information, you believe our program meets your needs and that you have the qualities we are seeking, please take the first step: send a cover letter and resume to Richard Smith describing your experience and qualifications with respect to the key qualities described above. We will contact you within three weeks. We look forward to hearing from you.
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