Our client was a medium sized distributor in a business-to-business selling environment. They recognized that they had a variety of skill sets among their sales team and that they had not been able to ramp up any of the newer members. The sales team clearly fell under the classic 80/20 rule, where a small number of salespeople were delivering the lion’s share of the sales results. Turnover was high among new sales associates because of their inability to earn their draw within a 12 month period. The top performing sales people (top 20%) were often unmanageable because of their relative sales success in relation to the other 80%.
We conducted Advanced Facilitation sessions to define clear performance objectives for the sales force. We reorganized the sales force in terms of three tiers, with different client responsibilities for each tier. The sales group was engaged in a Sales Planning Process to identify target markets, account acquisition strategies, and action plans for a one year sales period.
Sales skill development was provided for each of the three tiers of account representatives. We helped them identify milestones for their Ideal Sales Process. We created a 14 week new hire development process and provided a pipeline management system for ongoing account management. Reinforcement strategies insured new skills were maintained over time.
“Some of the things our team is doing now because of our participation in the sales development process include: weekly measurement of sales activities and results, call planners, post-call follow-up, and personal action plans including work on our critical success factors. Your process insured that the important skills we learned are now being used.”