Business Services Organization

We partnered with this $500 million business services organization, to bring a new approach and professionalism to their 400 plus sales team.

The Challenge

This company operates in a highly competitive market that has industry sales rep turnover rates of approximately 60%. The company was growing, but wanted to develop specific sales skills for the reps in an effort to ramp new reps up more quickly, and also to make the existing reps more productive. It was also believed that such improvements in productivity would result in a decrease in rep turnover.

The company had previously invested in an off-the-shelf sales training program that had been implemented at one time, but not continually reinforced. The result was that most of the benefits from that training had disappeared and some of the branch managers had even attempted to implement their own different training programs.

The Approach

We spent time with Field Sales, Operations, the Learning and Development Department within the company and even some of the company’s customers to gain a solid understanding the current processes, what things were working well, and the client’s true needs so we could understand the value of the services provided. We then formed a design team made up of current field leaders, and corporate staff to develop a customized sales process with specific skills training designed for each step of the process.

Before rolling it out to the field reps, the system was rolled out to the sales management so they had a firm understanding of the concepts before being asked to manage the new process. We also developed tools and metrics that the sales managers could use to coach the reps to the process and manage their performance. The sales management participated in the training of the field reps and used the new training tools and measurements to insure that the processes were being followed. Time was spent with the managers to make answer questions that they had and help was given to them as to how to coach the reps to the new process.

Once the managers were trained on the process and how to coach and manage to the process, it was rolled out to the field reps. Videos were produced that showed specific situations and how reps should handle them as they come up. Coaching videos were also produced that aided the managers in coaching their team.

The Result

During the four year period that we worked with this company, revenues increased over 40% with at least some portion being attributed to the improved sales process and coaching. Retention, although still high at approximately 36% was significantly down from the industry average. The company continues to use the process, tools and systems put in place today and all new reps are put through training on these systems.