Kestio

Testimonial] TRND: How to better convert your leads?

TRND is a new kind of marketing agency, which proposes a different relationship between brands and their customers, based on collaboration.

1-Can you tell us a little about your business and your customers?

We help brands to grow by activating their consumers, turning them into true "brand ambassadors", so that they can benefit from this incredible prescription force and ultimately generate more business.

The community we lead helps to promote these products in different ways: for example, by making suggestions for improvement to the brand, by posting customer reviews on the internet, or by spreading the word about these products by word of mouth.

 

Our credo: "Who better than a convinced consumer to talk about a product? ».

 

We advocate 'real life' marketing (as opposed to mass advertising), whose success is based on the quality of the products and their suitability for the customers' needs.

Our clients include major consumer brands (Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Unilever, Nivea, Coca Cola, etc.), high tech (Samsung, HTC, Sony, etc.) and small household appliances (Braun, Bosch, Philips, IRobot, etc.).

I am in charge of defining and implementing the commercial strategy on the French market with our customers, partners and prescribers.

 

2- Why did you call on KESTIO, and what were your objectives for lead conversion?

It was theanalysis of our sales cycle that led to the training and coaching project with KESTIO KESTIO: like any sales manager, I first asked myself "how can we increase the conversion rate of our sales team" to win more deals.

I then looked at the different stages of our sales cycle and our conversion funnel (targeting, prospecting, conversion...) to identify the points of improvement at each stage and positively impact our sales performance.

On the basis of this analysis, I initially contacted KESTIO to set up a training course focused on the closing stage. However, during the course of discussions with Dominique SEGUIN, which took place in the context of a global support approach, my thinking broadened and took a different direction.

 

I had expressed a goal like "go from 10 conversions per 100 leads to 20 conversions per 100 leads". You have led me to look at things from a new angle by expressing this objective differently: "to go from 10 conversions per 100 leads to 20 deals won by only working on 60 leads".

 

This is the strength of your approach and of the Chessboard Method©, which is based both on better targeting and on a new way of approaching prospecting in order to leave nothing to chance and optimise the conversion rate.

 

3- What measures have you implemented with KESTIO to improve lead processing and win more deals?

Together with the KESTIO consultant, we therefore designed the training and support system and defined the rhythm adopted for the training sessions and the follow-up in "coaching" mode.

 

In practice, we first set up three fairly intensive training days. We scheduled them over about a month and a half, in order to leave some time between sessions to allow for an initial application of the principles discussed.

This time proved useful for integrating the concepts transmitted, as some of them are quite disruptive and really require a change of approach, a radical change of posture, particularly in one's relationship with clients, and therefore call into question "acquired knowledge" or habits.

 

I had warned my sales people about the rather "disruptive" aspect of the Method to prepare them to welcome this change. This point really contributed to the success of the training, I think : the salespeople were immediately involved in the approach in a very voluntary way and really changed their practices and applied the method, immediately after the training.

In a second phase, the implementation of coaching and follow-up sessions - at the rate of 1.5 hours per month for each salesperson for 3 months - made it possible toanchor these new practices.

This individualised support over time also seems to me to be one of the keys to the success of this approach. I even think that it would have been useful to extend this "coaching" stage, which is very beneficial to our sales representatives.

 

4- What results did this training produce? Did it achieve your lead conversion objectives?

The training is recent, I don't have enough experience of the commercial results in terms of conversion rates.

Already, the posture of our sales staff and the way they support our customers have changed considerably, which is very promising.

 

The new concepts discovered in training have become so obvious that one sometimes wonders how one could have done it differently before!

 

Today, for example, all salespeople take notes in "verbatim" mode during their sales meetings, and discussions are based on richer and more objective information.

The vocabulary of salespeople has changed: the use of common concepts helps them not only individually in the way they handle deals, but also in their exchanges, which are more fluid.

Their relationship with customers has evolved: there has been a very strong awareness of the idea that this relationship must be balanced, that the effort made must be proportional.

 

Just as in seduction, you must also know how to "make yourself wanted"! You don't systematically trigger the appointment or the sending of the proposal, the desire must be real and shared.

 

The salespeople manage their diaries differently, we are no longer in a "meeting marathon", and above all, they approach these meetings with a different mindset.

This has optimised the sales cycle and we really focus on the customers who really need it, to supportthem in their decision cycle.

In terms of management, the method also has an impact on the way in which salespeople are monitored and steered : during my monthly business reviews with each salesperson, I use new monitoring points, which are shared with all the salespeople and can be compared from one deal to another.

 

The "scoring sheet" enables the qualification level of an opportunity to be gauged in an objective and structured way, and requires attention to be paid to the points of vigilance inherent in the method: have all the decision-makers, the budget, the decision timetable, etc. been identified?

 

In the past, we sometimes tended to rely on the salesperson's "feeling" about a deal. Now we have a completely different analysis of deals!

 

This new commercial approach is perfectly in line with our strategic objectives for the coming months: to stand out in an increasingly competitive market, to increase the value of our support to our customers and prospects, and to continue optimising our sales cycle.

 

To go further, discover the sales and marketing performance score of your company:

KESTIO is a company specialising in Customer Performance Improvement services and solutions. For more than 10 years, we have been helping companies to secure and increase their revenues in the long term, by intervening on all the levers that enable them to acquire and retain their customers.

 

See also our webinars that may interest you:

Discover the KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

all topics related to business performance with our experts: 

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, DG

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

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