2018 Corporate Excellence Awards Supplement

72 CORPORATE VISION / Corporate Excellence Awards 2018 10 Issue 4 2018 , Delta Point, Inc. is a consulting firmwhich specializes in partneringwith companies who face daunting challenges such as launching newproducts and brands, facing fierce competition, or decliningmarket share. Founded by Jerry Acuff, who is recognized inCVMagazine as the Most Influential CEOof the Year in the 2018 Corporate Excellence Awards, Jerry shares what he believes are the reasons behind his andDelta Point’s success. FromHumble Beginnings to International Recognition It all started with one man and one idea— how to implement change and make it stick. Since its inception, Delta Point has extended its reach across the customer experience spectrum, focusing on Selling Excellence, Strategic Positioning, Sales Messaging, Building Business Relationships, Sales Training, Coaching Selling Excellence, and Training and Leadership Development. Jerry founded Delta Point after a successful career as an award-winning sales representative, district sales manager and ultimately, Vice President/General Manager of the primary care component of a major pharmaceutical company. Throughout his career, Jerry recognized that despite the best efforts of leadership, often the success of any strategic initiative was based on what happened when the sales representative, marketing person, or medical science liaison engaged the customer. Delta Point specializes in significantly improving the impact of the customer conversation— starting with why that customer would want to listen to the company’s representative. First, they must effectively set the stage for a meaningful conversation by gaining attention or interest. Then, by choosing the correct words and asking questions, they can get the customer to think differently than they are currently thinking—thus making it far more likely that they’ll act differently. Delta Point has mastered the art of communicating effectively with customers by following a recognized process that has worked successfully with their clients, including more than 15 brands with sales in excess of $1 billion each. Utilizing this process, their clients have made significant inroads: after partnering with Delta Point, one customer increased their market share from 18% to 52% in just nine months. Another company that was launching a new product exceeded their first-year forecast by $130 million. Jerry is quick to emphasize that it is not the consultant alone who produces these excellent results. By partnering with key stakeholders, the consultant can identify those small changes that create a big impact on the bottom line. “For every customized Delta Point project, we conduct a thorough discovery process to enable us to gain a true understanding of what the client wants as well as the challenges and strengths that currently exist. We optimize our 30 employees and two office locations to create a team that will work with the client from discovery through implementation and execution.” 1804CV04 “We find a phased approach often works best. We start by identifying and then interviewing the key stakeholders, including select customers, medical science liaisons, top sales leaders and excellent sales people. We ensure that we talk to and engage each person who could be involved with the product including marketing, training and medical teams as well as key thought leaders.” “Multiple consultants are involved in this interview process, each following the same interview guide individualized for the role of the person being interviewed. This enables us to shorten the discovery process and leverage the knowledge and perspective of each consultant to formulate our customized solutions.” “The next step is to present our insights, findings, and recommendations to the decision makers. In most cases, the clients choose to engage us to