Cape Union Mart

 

Being a company that is closely linked with the great outdoors, Cape Union Mart were excited to have Elixir take their Sales Champions on a personal development experience that rewarded them for their superior performance.With Elixir being an organisation that creates team building and incentive experiences with a strong personal development focus, it was a great synergy.

The experience was help at Bush Willow Tented Camp a mere 30 minutes outside of Johannesburg. It would be difficult to find a venue that offers a better wilderness immersion experience so close to the heart of the city. The full day experience took the group along the Crocodile river and then up onto the top of Swartzkop mountain. On route, the group saw Giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeest, Wart Hog and a range of buck.

The experience itself was designed to give the sales team a gift that we all seek in our lives. A Journey! It takes powerful story telling, coaching and passion to transform a day trip into a rites of passage that would be a catalyst in the personal development of these sales people. Jeremy Behrmann, the Elixir Director, who is a pioneer of wilderness based coaching in South Africa was able to engage the group in powerful narrative that has valuable insights into personal fulfilment.

Throughout the experience, the Elixir facilitator was engaging them in a wide variety of coaching process designed to develop their self awareness, reflection capability and collaboration skills. Being a largely sales driven organisation, the group learnt about the evolution of our societal value systems from when we were small tribes living in the Cradle of Mankind, which was roughly 50 km's away, to present day. Their ability to be successful sales people was down to their understanding and appreciation of peoples emotional needs and how they can be leveraged to influence the buying decisions of consumers. This new awareness was valuable not only in terms of increased sales but also how to influence action in relationships and personal behaviour.

The finale of the experience was vision development process held on top of the Swartzkop mountain overlooking the whole of Johannesburg. Each participant renewed and enriched their personal mission and shared it with the group. Having all shared, participants were invited to acknowledge the visions of their fellow colleagues while also handing them the end of a rope that symbolised their exchange. By the time everyone had finished the group had created a web of connections that reminded people that to be truly fulfilled themselves, they needed to enrich the lives of others. That is the key to true customer service!

Testimonial From Derryn Bolton, Learning & development Manager at Cape Union Mart

I had the pleasure of working with Jeremy and the Elixir Group in May of this year where we enlisted his support to facilitate an outdoor intervention with twelve of our top performing sales staff in the country.

As an outdoor lifestyle retailer, we found Jeremy’s principles of learning and development to be perfectly synergistic to our core business; as he uses nature as a teacher, and draws a lot of powerful metaphors to life, from our very beautiful natural surroundings.

It became quite clear that this kind of facilitation is Jeremy’s forte. He handled the at times, rather challenging group with skill, poise and diplomacy. Most memorable was the way in which he took the group through a process of awakening, awareness, reflection and goal-setting. We ended the day on a perfectly orchestrated crescendo – atop a hill overlooking the breathtaking landscape below, sharing our collective and freshly penned “Life Manifesto’s”. What a beautiful journey!

I know our teams took a lot of value from the experience. Some asked themselves questions they’ve never asked themselves before, and everyone learnt a lot about themselves along the way.

Thank you Jeremy for guiding our teams to live a life of greater personal purpose, for awakening them to the powerful fact that nature is our teacher, and providing them with a magnificent nature-based experience in the process!

We look forward to the next one!

Yours sincerely,

Deryn Bolton

HRD Manager