In order to effectively meet the strong ambition of international development of his start-up Wisembly, Andrei Vestemeanu – partner and co-founder – called on KESTIO to train his team of 10 sales representatives and optimize his sales organization in order to improve his conversion rates.
Feedback on the results of this approach.
1- The initial objective: from sales team training to sales organization optimization
A. Vestemeanu: Wisembly is a start-up that publishes a collaborative solution for preparing and facilitating meetings allowing companies that use it to increase productivity by making their meetings more efficient and engaging through digital tools. Founded 6 years ago, the company now has over 600 clients across 5 continents and works with 80% of companies listed on the CAC 40. It already has around forty employees and 2 offices in Paris and London.
“Initially, I contacted KESTIO to train our sales representatives in complex sales methods, with the idea of giving them a common foundation and a consistent way of operating within the team.”
During our discussions, we quickly realized that beyond this question, it would also be beneficial to work on the "sales organization" aspect prior to this training action to have an optimal impact on our results.
On the subject of opportunity conversion, for example, a diagnosis conducted by the consultant allowed us to observe a transformation rate of 20% (between the number of discoveries and the number of signatures). This means that 80% of commercial time was previously spent losing!
2- The main stages of the support: diagnosis, optimization of the sales organization, training and coaching of salespeople
The KESTIO consultant (Dominique SEGUIN, editor's note) first carried out our "Sales Diag" : he conducted interviews or had questionnaires completed by all the members of the team concerned (Associate Directors, sales representatives, Marketing and HR managers), to learn about our organization and analyze it against a grid of pre-established criteria.
“The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of our current sales organization and identify the priority areas for improvement.”
This allowed him to formulate a number of concrete recommendations, which were presented to us during a feedback meeting. The areas for improvement identified included, for example, the segmentation of our client portfolio into "gold, silver, and bronze" clients based on their potential.
Based on this, in particular, we were then able to define the right "commercial intensity" (in frequency, time, and resources) to allocate to our clients, the right "mix" between physical, telephone, and video meetings (to reduce travel time) based on a better analysis of the stakes of each commercial meeting.
Based on this initial analysis, we then organized 2 workshop-style work meetings between the 3 Associate Directors and the Sales Director to precisely define the outlines of the target organization towards which we are evolving in our sales management.
About a month after this work, we implemented the sales training:
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- 2 days of training in the Chessboard Method© for the 10 sales representatives, in the presence of the 3 partners
- Then there are individual coaching sessions (remote, for salespeople based in London), at a rate of one 1-hour session per month for each salesperson.
These sessions allow everyone to consult with the advisor based on their needs. They can focus on a particular deal to receive support in investigating the account or review the fundamentals of the method.
The Sales Director is present during the coaching sessions. After the sessions, we systematically conduct a global debrief involving the Sales Director, the consultant, and myself.
This allows us to share insights on management support and areas of focus adopted after the coaching session to continue supporting the sales representative between sessions and reinforcing skills.
3- Results produced: better allocation of sales resources, increased sales team productivity, and optimized conversion rates.
During the Sales Diag, we observed that the contact strategy was essentially based on physical appointments. However, in the age of multi-channel, it is possible to develop more efficient and less costly strategies. We therefore started to carry out the discovery phase by telephone.
“By transferring this activity to a telephone channel, we have doubled the number of weekly contacts with the same resource scope, which is the equivalent in productivity to 6 additional sales representatives without any extra costs!”
Furthermore, to meet the goal of improving conversion rates, we developed a GO/NO GO grid with the help of KESTIO. Combined with the implementation of complex sales training (Chessboard Method), this now allows us to more quickly identify opportunities that will not succeed because they do not meet the necessary conditions.
“This time, previously wasted on poorly qualified opportunities, has been transferred to prospecting and more in-depth work dedicated to opportunities with a higher probability of success, to further optimize our chances of winning these deals.”
From a more general point of view, we have clarified and refined the segmentation of our client portfolio, and we now have a common nomenclature for everyone to discuss deals: this streamlines exchanges, promotes dialogue, and mutual understanding. We function better as a team.
Individually, the initial level of understanding varies from person to person, which is why individual support is essential. We regularly need to revisit the basics of the method.
Regarding sales organization, we are now able to best allocate available resources based on the priorities that have been defined. This will be particularly useful for acquiring new clients and continuing our international development!
To delve deeper into the topic of sales performance:
KESTIO is a company specializing in services and solutions for improving Customer Performance. For over 10 years, we have been helping companies secure and sustainably increase their revenue by acting on all the levers that allow them to acquire and retain their customers.
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