Beverly Flaxington

Your sales and client service training was relevant, effective and appreciated by our employees. It also provided unexpected benefits through improved internal communication and a better understanding of what is truly important to our customers.

In working with The Collaborative we were able to develop and execute a more focused and defined business development strategy resulting in a dramatic increase in revenues and assets under management.

Last year we took a long and hard look at what we needed in the area of sales training and then went searching for the best company that would fit our way of conducting business. We first needed to assess our sales team so we had everyone take the DISC, which really opened our eyes [to behavior style]. We not only are managing the team more effectively, but we redesigned our approach to have a more activity-driven sales process rather than just [going for] new assets. It has also helped to fine tune the skills of some of our team that perhaps had gotten a bit rusty. Lastly, we have also used some of the time management and sales skills ideas to adjust to this very difficult market and prospecting environment. We will look to The Collaborative again this year for business planning again as we did last year."

CresaPartners has used the DISC profile as a pre-employment screening tool for several years. Last year, we were referred to The Collaborative to assist in putting together broker teams within our company. (Their) insights, combined with the PIAV (Personal Interest, Attitudes and Values) profile, greatly facilitated the "match making" process. We plan to continue using The Collaborative in the future to make better employment decisions and to avoid costly personnel mistakes.

At FutureFirst (acquired by Global Investment Systems in 2004 and now part of Linedata), we wanted to enter a larger and different market and needed a marketing relaunch to be successful. The Collaborative studied the competitors and the structure of the very technical hedge fund accounting software market, and was able to accurately position FutureFirst in that space. This enabled FutureFirst to position itself for an acquisition, and enabled GIS to enter that growing market.

We built a new and enhanced team over the past year at the executive level with very accomplished and experienced executives. Our aggressive growth plans call for a great deal of communication, cooperation and objectives management between the executives and our associates. To accomplish our goals, we knew that we must maximize our understanding of one another, our ability to work together effectively and our communication skills, so we hired The Collaborative to assist us with our mission. Our experience was fantastic. The team was fully engaged in the process that they established for us and the results were exceptional. I would highly recommend The Collaborative for a job well done and certainly our team can attribute some of our ability to reach our goals to them!

The Collaborative doesn't so much train people, as it evolves them. They focus on the person and the process, fostering an experience that enables sales professionals to make their work a life experience, not just a job experience.

Whether profiling senior team candidates, integrating and transitioning new candidates into our wealth management firm, or innovative, customized professional development for our team, we view The Collaborative as our consulting 'Consigliore' and a permanent outside consultant for our firm.

As is often the case in highly intellectual or technical firms, New Frontier is a 'product-focused', not a 'sales-focused' company. The Collaborative helped to determine the marketing and distribution strategies best suited to our firm, and then gave us complete 'A to Z' guidance for implementation. We gained sales and marketing insights we'd never had before.

We asked The Collaborative to help us transform our sales approach into a well-defined process, understand and investigate other sales channels and improve our marketing communications. Their investment industry knowledge and experience provided fast and effective results. With their guidance we've implemented sales and marketing improvements, held discussions with sales channel partners and continue to make positive changes based on Collaborative recommendations.