Case Study
Building sales capability from the ground up
Insight
Our client was a marketing services company in the south-east, already seeing some sales growth. All the same, they had some concerns about sales as the company expanded and recruited us as sales coaches to solve these main challenges:
- They suspected their sales approach was inefficient, with no consistent pricing
- Entering new channels seemed to be expensive and inefficient
- They needed to recruit their first sales people but were worried about getting the right fit
- There was no sales process and the marketing manager claimed sales leads were getting lost
- They wanted performance-based sales targets but their sales pipeline was unpredictable
Solution
The first step was to help them think about how to construct a quote and what questions they needed their prospective clients to answer before sending the proposal across.
Alongside this we helped them identify potential growth channels and used their CRM to separate out direct customers from channel partners.
Behind the scenes we helped them understand the metrics within their current sales funnel. What were their real conversion rates, the most effective lead generation methods and how long was the sales process?
This allowed us to model the sales growth of their new recruits and to predict when they would become profitable.
From here we helped them identify the key criteria they wanted to interview against, both technical sales skills and behaviours. We helped them create a job description, place adverts and we trained the business owners in competency-based interviews so they had a consistent approach.
The next step was to build an onboarding programme so that new starters had the knowledge and skills they needed to succeed.
Once the new team were on the ground we ran a half day workshop where we mapped out the customer process, walking through it in the way a client would experience it. We actually invited along a real client, which helped add some jeopardy to the feedback!
Outcome
Along the way we coached our client through a couple of major client negotiations, helping them raise the price of their core service and reduce their typical sales cycle by a month.
This client is still working with us. Their priorities shift and what we support them with changes by the month, but whatever the focus it’s a pleasure being by their side and watching them grow by providing tailored guidance that works for their business.
