Client

A UK Fund Manager

Requirement

Support for the Fixed Income team to improve their success rate in pitches to manage the investments of local authorities in the UK.

The team of four had a success rate of 4 out of their last 10 pitches.

The Oakwood City approach

First, we had the team pitch to us as if we were potential clients, reprising the roles and content of their most recent pitch.  We tried to replicate the physical environment as closely as possible.  They always pitched to at least three people.

Our initial conclusion was that there was nothing at all wrong with what they were selling.  In fact, they were a highly technically competent team with an excellent offering.  The focus of our attention was to be how they conducted their pitches. We proposed a suite of fortnightly practical training and coaching sessions over two months, during which time they would be making at least two pitches.

The content of the sessions included:

• Observation and feedback on individual behaviour
• Coaching on developing their vocal strength, range and style in a pitch.
• Coaching on body language:
• increasing impact of entrance and introductions, including movement and pace, eye contact, hand-shaking and positioning
• How to position themselves relative to the clients and each other during a pitch.
• What to do and how to look when not speaking (many a pitch is lost by the body language of a non-speaking colleague)
• How to spread eye-contact and use gestures when speaking
• How to manage the departure
• NLP sessions to help with reading body language, building rapport and using verbal language that would match the language of the client
• Much behavioural practice and feedback

The Outcome

Of the two pitches during the training and the next six – all eight mandates were won. Soft skills success that could be measured in hard financial terms!

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