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Ils sont nés dans un monde digital, réfléchissent différemment, sont naturellement connectés, mélangent les genres, peuvent finir tôt un jour et travailler tard un week end, … il y en a même qui bossent en tongues !

Cette génération, qui aura le pouvoir dans une quinzaine d’année et a fait son entrée dans les entreprises au milieu des années 2000, peut-elle être managée comme les précédentes ? Et sinon comment s’y prendre ? Comment l’entreprise peut-elle évoluer ? Y-a-t-il une opportunité à saisir ?

Les premiers nés dans un monde digital

Les Millénials constituent la première génération née dans le monde des nouvelles technologies, de la connaissance accessible et gratuite. Nés entre 1980 et 2000, ils ont une aisance intuitive de l’usage des outils dont ils n’ont même pas conscience tellement ils baignent dans leur environnement naturel. Manager les Millenials…est-ce si différent ? Quelles sont leurs attentes, leurs codes ?

Pour cette génération, le référentiel temps est l’instant. L’espace-temps est court, immédiat, et donc à l’opposé du temps du monde professionnel qui évolue dans un temps long et répétitif. Et c’est encore plus vrai pour les fonctions commerciales qui réclament souvent des tâches ingrates (installer une relation, construire un portefeuille, segmenter un marché…). Pour un Millénials, l’immédiateté est naturelle : « Je poste une photo, j’ai des likes trois heures plus tard »,« je rencontre des personnes lors d’une soirée, j’ai de nouveaux amis Facebook ou LinkedIn le lendemain ».

Dans ce contexte, faire entrer cette génération dans les codes de l’entreprises demande une attention particulière et les managers devront adapter leurs méthodes.

Comment manager les Millenials ?

Nous avons identifié quatre pistes pour faciliter l’épanouissement et la performance des Millénials dans les fonctions commerciales:

1 : donner du sens à leur travail.

Cette génération a besoin de sens. Il leur faut évoluer dans des entreprises dont ils comprennent le rôle et l’impact en tant qu’actrices et parties prenantes de l’écosystème citoyen. Contrairement aux générations précédentes, ils travaillent plus par désir que par nécessité, il faut donc expliciter les objectifs et les valeurs de l’entreprise pour les attirer et les retenir… Les managers doivent décrire la cathédrale construite tous ensemble plutôt que le mur confié à chacun.

2 : installer une situation ascendante d’apprentissage.

Les postures de « sachant », la vérité descendante, voilà de quoi créer des situations de blocage. Habitués à naviguer, ils savent apprendre seuls, aller chercher la connaissance. « Vous avez 4 heures pour apprendre tel sujet avec les moyens que vous voulez » sera plus efficace qu’une information descendante. Dans les modules de formation se développent d’ailleurs les apprentissages inversés : ils cherchent, puis on valide et on répond à leurs questions. Ils ont intégré que leur formation durerait toute leur vie. Cette génération va mettre fin à la séquence apprentissage/travail/loisir-retraite et va préférer faire tout en même temps dans un espace-temps perméable. Cette approche poussera les entreprises restées dans des logiques séquentielles à modifier leurs façons de faire. La formation par exemple gagnera à être diffusée en petites touches concrètes dans le temps plutôt qu’organisée autour de gros blocs rigides de plusieurs jours.

3 : les mettre dans leur zone de confort

La fonction commerciale comprend de nombreuses séquences de travail relativement ingrates comme par exemple la prospection téléphonique : ces passages obligés sont très compliqués pour eux. Une solution consiste à les maintenir dans une zone de confort : découper les tâches, associer une réflexion marketing, créer un enjeu collectif pour mobiliser leur énergie. L’idée consiste à diluer les parties pénibles dans un contexte plus gérable pour eux en valorisant le volet apprentissage et la dimension collective. Par exemple le volume d’appels sortants peut être partagé dans l’équipe et l’objectif devenir commun.

4 : favoriser un environnement de travail collaboratif

Le métier de commercial est plutôt individualiste. Pour une génération qui pense communauté et agit en mode collectif, la dimension individuelle ne prend pas. Le manager doit donc s’appliquer à développer des logiques collaboratives, des objectifs communs, imaginer des équipes. Ceci implique de prévoir des actions qui se conduisent en groupe et des indicateurs qui privilégient l’effort collectif. La construction du portefeuille par exemple peut leur être confiée. Il l’accepteront plus facilement s’ils la co-construisent (« bottom up ») que si elle leur est imposée par la hiérarchie (« bottom down »). Les formations aujourd’hui des profils 25-35 ans sont en pédagogie inversée . On mesure l’implication améliorée des participants.

D’une manière générale il ne faut pas perdre de vue qu’il s’agit là d’une évolution du management, de même qu’on ne manageait pas de la même manière en 1950 et en 1990 ! La logique « top down », très verticale, n’est plus vraiment efficace et le sera de moins en moins. Si les rituels de management restent parce que l’activité doit être pilotée (entretiens, bilan, plans d’actions…), leur forme doit s’adapter et évoluer vers une posture et une démarche de coaching, plus horizontale. Le manager doit donc aussi être ouvert aux propositions. Les Millénials savent que leur monde change et qu’ils sont en perpétuel apprentissage : ils sont donc ouverts au dialogue et au partage de connaissances.

L’entreprise doit faire comme avec le reste de ses collaborateurs : les intégrer et les former, mais surtout les considérer pour leurs qualités et ce qu’ils peuvent apporter à l’entreprise. C’est une chance à saisir pour évoluer et devenir plus performant.

"Cela ne fait aucun sens d’embaucher des talents puis de leur dire ce qu’ils doivent faire. Nous enrôlons des gens intelligents afin qu’ils nous disent ce que nous devons faire"

Steve Jobs

Créateur de Apple

Alors les Millénials sont probablement une chance pour les entreprises qui sauront apprendre d’eux.

Time is a valuable resource, and your sales representatives are short on it. In this webinar, KESTIO explains how to save them 50% of their time:

You can also consult our innovative approaches to support leaders and managers in this change:

Il en devient le Directeur Général en 2016 et se fixe comme objectif de restructurer le service commercial afin de gagner en efficacité et d’adresser d’autres segments de marché comme les parcs à thèmes, les musées et les stades.

Kestio intervient dans ce contexte.

Kestio : Comment s’est déroulée la prise de contact avec kestio ?

Sébastien Vergnon : En fait nous avions répondu favorablement à une proposition d’audit sur notre organisation commerciale. Les résultats ont été sans appel ! Notre mode de fonctionnement, hérité de notre histoire, n’était plus adapté au marché ni à nos objectifs. Nous menions des actions commerciales plutôt routinières et opportunistes qui ne nous permettaient pas de faire progresser nos parts de marché. Comme nous l’a expliqué Fabien Comtet, « tous nos moteurs de l’efficacité commerciale n’étaient pas allumés ! ». L’avantage d’un regard extérieur tient dans ce qu’il apporte une autre parole, un autre cadre.

Kestio : Comment avez-vous exploité les résultats de l’audit ?

Sébastien Vergnon : Tout d’abord les livrables apportaient des éléments factuels et chiffrés indiscutables qui ont nourri notre vision empirique de la situation. A partir de là, nous avons pu faire le tri, travailler sur ce qui fonctionnait, ce qu’il fallait améliorer, ce qui devait être supprimé et enfin ce qui était à créer. Nous nous sommes réorganisés et nous avons ensuite planifié des formations en utilisant notamment la méthode de l’échiquier.

Kestio : Et vous ne vous êtes pas arrêtés là !

Sébastien Vergnon : Effectivement. Suite à ma formation puis celle des commerciaux, nous avons eu envie d’aller plus loin, de poursuivre le changement interne de l’entreprise, et surtout de garder un accompagnement dans le temps pour ne pas nous perdre et ne pas prendre le risque de laisser les vieilles habitudes reprendre le dessus.

Kestio : Vous recherchiez une forme de coaching…

Sébastien Vergnon : Exactement. Une fois la stratégie précisée et l’entreprise réorganisée en conséquence avec des responsabilités redéfinies, nous avons démarré la formation KestioLive avec la mise en place d’un Plan d’Action Mensuel pour chaque collaborateur. Et effectivement le suivi régulier a démontré tout son intérêt. J’ai pu construire les outils avec un expert, adapter une trame fournie par Kestio, et même simuler un entretien qui m’a permis de me familiariser avec le wording. Le tout en plusieurs étapes : je n’ai donc rien perdu en cours de route de ma dynamique initiale !

Kestio : Du point de vue utilisateur, quel est l’avantage d’un business coaching online ?

Sébastien Vergnon : Habituellement, dans des formations classiques ou du coaching traditionnel, on passe beaucoup de temps sur la théorie. Généralement, j’arrive assez bien à saisir l’idée, mais la mise en pratique ensuite est plus complexe. Avec KestioLive on garde le lien entre l’idée de départ et sa réalisation. La posture change également. Nous ne sommes pas dans une logique « voici ce qu’il faut faire » mais dans une interrogation adaptative « de quoi avez-vous besoin ? ». Je me sens également challengé avec bienveillance, et donc sécurisé.

Kestio : Pourquoi avoir choisi Kestio ?

Sébastien Vergnon : J’ai choisi Kestio pour pouvoir mener à bien le changement dans l’entreprise. J’étais d’accord avec les livrables de l’audit mais je n’avais pas les moyens, dans une PME de 28 personnes, de les mettre en place seul. Avec KestioLive je suis juste à l’intersection entre mes besoins et mes moyens.

Kestio : Concrètement, comment allez-vous utiliser le service ?

Sébastien Vergnon : A raison de deux entretiens mensuels. Les thématiques sont définies à l’avance de manière à ce que l’expert Kestio puisse les préparer. La visio permet de partager les documents sur lesquels nous travaillons, mais il arrive fréquemment que le téléphone suffise.

Kestio : Donc Kestio intervient régulièrement dans la conduite du changement des équipes ?

Sébastien Vergnon : Oui, on est pas seulement à distance finalement. Nous avons organisé notre premier séminaire en octobre 2017. Nous l’avons construit avec l’aide des experts Kestio ce qui a permis de bien condenser et optimiser la journée et nous avons bénéficié d’interventions pendant le séminaire ce qui a également apporté du contenu. Le résultat était au-delà de nos espérances. Les équipes, un peu sceptiques au départ, constatent que les choses bougent et que les résultats commencent à se faire sentir. Nous allons donc poursuivre encore un moment, pour éviter de poser les mêmes questions dans 10 ans !

Thank you for your testimonial!

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Significant business development potential is emerging, provided that you are able to evolve in methods, strategy, and customer relations.

So how can these professions, used to managing inbound calls, take advantage of this opportunity? What organization should be planned?What are the winning strategies?

The change in legislation results from the convergence of three factors:

– the government's desire to establish a competitive environment in order to lower costs for the public,

– technological innovation which makes it possible to work differently and save on low value-added tasks, with a reduction in production costs and reliable results,

– the behavior of consumers, who need information and are increasingly independent in their research and comparisons.

The rules will therefore evolve, and for lawyers, notaries and accountants, who have always been part of the triptych of "receiving an incoming call / performing the service / invoicing", this is a real revolution that will take place, a 180° paradigm shift! And therefore great development opportunities for those who know how to adapt to their new environment!

Moving from needs to commercial development challenges

To benefit from it, the key will be to move from an approach centered on customer needs to a posture that takes into account the issues as a whole. In other words, we can no longer simply respond to what the customer expresses. Rather, it will be a matter of putting the request back into its general context in order to take into account other factors, to add additional elements to the mere expression of needs and to bring the applicant, the customer, towards an enriched service.

Where, for example, a chartered accountant used to meet the need for VAT returns, payroll preparation, and tax package filing, tomorrow they will need to consider their client's sector of activity, their competitive environment, and their characteristics to offer optimized management solutions. As we can see, this reversal of the relationship represents a significant potential for additional sales, provided that the players are able to develop their ability to advise in a refined and relevant manner. This change will require a lot of internal work, reflection, and strategic analysis to differentiate their offer in terms of substance and form, and to move from a passive to an active sales mode.

How to solicit feedback from your clients?

Clearly, prospecting will not come naturally, as it is not part of the culture or habits of the professions concerned. That being said, before seeking market share, it is first necessary to work on your own client portfolio.

The first step will therefore be to segment it in order to identify those that are most relevant in terms of business potential and commercial development. This will require defining and characterizing the client who is most aligned with the service offering of the firm or practice. And then to initiate proactive action with each of them in order to better understand their respective contexts and propose offers before the client has expressed a need. A lawyer, for example, can easily increase their volume of contacts with their clients. Mathematically, by concentrating time on those with the highest potential, they give themselves every chance to develop their turnover.

The firms and studies that can create opportunities and pretexts for good sales conversations will therefore have every chance of increasing the average basket size of active customers.

Learn to manage customer relationships!

For these professions, the main risk lies in clients fleeing to more competitive providers. However, the clientele is not spread across multiple providers, except perhaps for lawyers' clients. A client who leaves means 100% of their budget is lost! It is therefore imperative to generate and strengthen contact points and align with client needs. And since the services, being regulated, are substantially the same, the difference will also be made by the ability to cultivate client relationships.

To retain their active clients and offer a competitive service, firms and studies should seek to identify low value-added tasks in order to produce cheaper and faster (technology makes this easy today; for example, a notary should no longer have to sign the hundred pages of a sales contract other than electronically!). By remaining efficient on these offers, they maintain a point of contact to then bring the client to high value-added services.

However, addressing client relationships also means discussing client experience. This means that beyond targeting and client knowledge, lawyers, notaries, and accountants will need to revisit how they offer their services to clients for their business development.

The challenge? To move the customer from "I am satisfied" to "Wow! What I'm being offered is unique!"

This approach is already well-established in retail and non-legal B2B activities. Today, tools, techniques, and methods are available to ensure success. For notaries, lawyers, and accountants aiming to leverage this new framework to truly grow their business, the goal is to adopt these resources as quickly as possible to structure their commercial development.

Et cela ne se fera pas en quelques jours de formation dans une salle. C’est au contraire une évolution qui réclame une action durable et régulière. Kestio répond précisément à ce besoin de pilotage continu, pragmatique, et permet non seulement de travailler en amont sur le fond mais également de rendre opérant les changements pour les inscrire dans la durée. Ses experts maîtrisent toute la chaîne de valeur de la relation commerciale et le format court et régulier garantit l’imprégnation des bonnes pratiques et la réussite d’une conduite du changement annoncée !

Ready to get started? Get your free Sales Dynamic Score now by clicking on this link:

Created in 2010, the company has experienced strong growth and now has 340 employees spread across 5 agencies. The company has been ranked as a "Great Place to Work" for the past two years. While SQUAD relies on solid growth, its leaders want to evolve to seek more added value; it is in this context of change that KESTIO's commercial performance support comes in.

KESTIO: How did you hear about KESTIO?

Marc Brua: Through the recruitment firm Up Too who put us in contact. It was in 2015 and we were dealing with a problem: how to sell more value! We had the technical capabilities to respond to ambitious projects, but we did not have the right tools to qualify projects and map our market.

KESTIO: In other words, you were looking to evolve your offer?

Marc Brua: In concrete terms, we have an IT services company type of business where we sell consulting days, but our recognized technical expertise can allow us to move towards higher value-added and visibility missions with our clients and prospects. The goal for us was to move upmarket from a commercial point of view, to better identify the projects on which we could position ourselves in order to bring more added value.

KESTIO: What KESTIO system did you propose?

Marc Brua : We brought all of our sales representatives together for three days for sales training with the Chessboard method. And we fully benefited from the support we put in place. Each sales representative was followed for 8 to 10 months, with a monthly interview, via video conference or telephone, on the methods and techniques seen during the training. This structure made it possible to continue in daily operations what had been seen in theory during the training.

This is the support we were looking for, the connection that allows us to change behaviors profoundly and sustainably. After more than a year, we can say that this investment has paid off and the entire team has benefited from it.

KESTIO: How did she react?

Marc Brua : As the turnover was constantly increasing, the sales team had not attended any training for some time. They, therefore, appreciated being able to benefit from a session. The method proposed by KESTIO had a strong impact on the entire team, and everyone was able to enhance their techniques and processes. Afterwards, everyone could have gone back to their daily routine with their habits. However, the monthly follow-up clearly helped to avoid falling into this trap.

This remote and regular support system addresses the recurring problem of classroom training where theoretical knowledge fades once back in the field. This is what makes the difference today: continuing the effort with practical contributions to consolidate changes. The KESTIO Live approach consultants are attentive and involved, enabling each sales representative to truly change their dimension. What's powerful is that everyone has progressed, each at their own pace.

KESTIO: Where are you today?

Marc Brua:

Since the sales training using the Chessboard method, we have expanded the team, and five sales representatives have become managers. Consequently, we once again called upon KESTIO for KESTIO LIVE monitoring for six to eight months to ensure the practical acquisition of management methods. On this topic, unlike the first, we are also working on steering tools that KESTIO provided us with and that we have adapted to our situation.

We are at the beginning of the program, but we are confident. And the five managers benefiting from this offer are now used to the operating mode and therefore even more available to take advantage of it.

This remote and regular support system addresses the recurring issue of classroom training, where theoretical knowledge often fades once back in the field. This is what makes the difference today: continuing the effort with practical contributions to consolidate changes. The KESTIO approach consultants are attentive and involved, enabling each salesperson to truly reach their full potential. The great thing is that everyone has progressed, each at their own pace.

Thank you for your testimonial!

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Discover the keys to evolving your CONSULTATIVE SELLING approach:

Mais se concentrer uniquement sur les résultats est-il suffisant ? Comment sont-ils construits ? Qu’y a-t-il en amont des résultats ? Quels sont les moyens d’action ? Quels sont les moteurs qui construisent la performance ? Sur quoi agir ?

Un client se plaignait il y a peu du manque d’efficacité de ses commerciaux et pensait qu’il devait investir dans leur formation. Le problème est qu’il n’avait aucun moyen d’être sûr que c’était là le bon levier d’action ! Peut-être était-ce une question d’outils ? Ou de motivation ? Ou d’allocation de temps sur les bonnes cibles ?

Dans le management et le pilotage de l’activité commerciale, il est fondamental d’établir le bon diagnostic afin d’appliquer la bonne solution. C’est un peu comme pour une douleur au dos qui serait la conséquence d’une mauvaise posture : l’ostéopathe va manipuler la jambe car agir sur le dos n’aurait aucun effet bénéfique à long terme. C’est une vision systémique. Et cette vision systémique s’applique pleinement à la performance commerciale, laquelle doit être vue comme un ensemble dans le dispositif du management commerciale. Les composantes de l’efficacité commerciale sont nombreuses et une analyse globale est nécessaire pour s’assurer non seulement d’identifier les points de progrès, mais également de les traiter dans le bon ordre en fonction des enjeux et des impacts entre eux.

Par exemple affiner la stratégie commerciale impactera les plans d’action marketing et commercial, qui peuvent impacter la motivation, voire aussi le contenu des formations, l’organisation de l’administration des ventes, etc.

Mettre en place un outil CRM impactera le management de ventes, les règles de gestion commerciales, et soulèvera aussi des sujets de motivation et de formation.

Mes moteurs commerciaux sont-ils bien allumés ?

Face à des résultats décevants il ne faut pas non plus se cacher derrière des excuses exogènes sur lesquelles on ne peut pas agir et qui de toute manière ne sont que de « fausses barbes » : le marché est tendu, la concurrence a lancé une nouvelle offre, c’est la période des vacances etc.

En revanche, le manager dispose de sept leviers d’action, sept moteurs qui doivent bien fonctionner afin que la performance commerciale soit au rendez-vous :

1. Une stratégie commerciale claire et partagée avec les équipes,
2. Un plan marketing multicanal détaillé et au service de la stratégie,
3. Un plan d’action commercial qui traduit de manière détaillée la stratégie commerciale en activités quantifiées et ciblées,
4. Un pilotage des plan d’action commercial et des processus et méthodes clairement établies
5. Un programme de recrutement et de management des équipes qui intègre motivation et développement permanent des compétences,
6. Un système d’information structuré et performant (CRM),
7. Un support administratif et technique efficace.

Il y a là un ensemble complexe mais concret et opérationnel qui permet de passer d’une connaissance et d’un mode d’action intuitifs vers une démarche structurée et pragmatique. Faire la bonne analyse, vérifier l’état de chaque moteur, et savoir agir dans le bon ordre, avec le bon niveau de priorité et de la bonne manière. Si tous ces moteurs de l’efficacité commerciale sont bien allumés, les résultats suivront !

Et cela ne peut pas se faire ponctuellement, par à-coup, uniquement lors de séminaires commerciaux par exemple. C’est au contraire une action durable et régulière. Kestio répond précisément à ce besoin de pilotage continu, connecté au terrain et à la réalité du moment, appuyé sur la vision globale du système !

C’est parce que « la maison n’est jamais rangée de manière définitive » que le manager a besoin de vérifier si ses moteurs de l’efficacité commerciale tournent rond !

Knowing how to reposition your company's activity can be vital in a difficult situation. Discover the different stages of this process in this webinar:

Découvrez nos approches innovantes pour accompagner les dirigeants et managers dans cette démarche d’efficacité commerciale :

However, seeking to convert prospects puts salespeople in an effort zone, a less comfortable space than managing existing clients.

This is where a salesperson's competitive spirit becomes essential to fuel the determination to initiate new relationships with prospects and guide them to a final positive decision. Some approach sales like an amateur on a Sunday, while others operate at a high level with significant ambition.

The spirit of competition, a state of mind

The first point to have the right attitude is to be proud of the product or service you have to offer. The effective hunter will do this all the more easily if they are convinced of the value of their approach! It's about managing to overcome your natural inhibitions to build relationships with strangers who haven't asked for anything and don't need anything in principle!

If a salesperson isn't firmly convinced of their product's value, they'll eventually burn out from the inevitable setbacks they'll face before successfully acquiring additional clients. Mentally, a top-performing salesperson prepares themselves by focusing on all the satisfied customers who are happy to purchase their product or service. In other words, they need to motivate themselves by shifting from a « I'm going to be a bother » attitude to a deep conviction: « I'm going to provide my prospect with a benefit, a service ». This positive mental routine is a key to success, simple and incredibly effective!

It's actually about changing one's mindset, a mental shift, in order to transform an unrewarding and difficult activity into a positive attitude capable of making one's company shine. The hunter salesperson keeps in mind that selling is a joyful game where you always win in the end.

The goal of prospecting is to get an appointment (Discover or rediscover our infographic on the sales appointment here), an exchange, a first meeting. If the salesperson maintains a positive attitude and a competitive spirit, they will be able to prepare to bypass or overcome defense systems, especially the reception desk or switchboard. They will not lose sight of their goal: to sell only the appointment, and will bounce back from refusal to refusal until they succeed!

Every competitor relies on a strategy.

Next, an effective salesperson adopts a strategic, thoughtful approach to increase efficiency. They start by defining the profile of their ideal client. From this, they deduce the relevant criteria to segment their target market and extract from their database the addresses of prospects potentially interested in their product.

From there, much like a top athlete who has spent hours watching their opponents, they identify as many options as possible to reach the determined target within the market in order to maximize their chances of initiating sales conversations and signing a client. Attentive to their market, the sales representative with a conquering spirit remains alert, vigilant, and seeks to identify weak signals likely to lead to receptive prospects.

Strategy also involves organization. Maintaining control over your activities and optimizing your effort and output is key to long-term success. It starts by blocking out prospecting slots in your calendar, time slots during which you do not check emails or answer incoming calls. Eliminate any external distractions that allow you to escape! With this approach, you maintain control and act according to your own objectives. If you leave your phone available, you give others the opportunity to use your time to satisfy their own objectives.

It is recommended to organize around 3-hour blocks to guarantee impact and progress without fearing wear and tear. Prospecting for half an hour here and there does not allow you to get into a good dynamic. By organizing in this way, the salesperson will also integrate the idea that commercial prospecting towards new clients is not the adjustment variable for the rest of the activity but an essential!

Developing the spirit of a high-level competitor actually consists, beyond the technical aspects and the right posture to adopt, of developing the playful aspect. It's a bit like a skier above a mogul field. For most people, moguls are obstacles, preventing them from skiing in circles. For a specialist, they become landmarks around which to turn!

Finally, having the spirit of a competitor means having fun and loving the game! Loving the techniques to get around obstacles! This change of posture requires training, regular coaching, like any top athlete.

To impart the skills of good coaches to managers, or to restore the taste and spirit of high-level competition to sales representatives, we invite you to discover KESTIO coaching, dedicated to entrepreneurs and SMEs.

To advance in sales practices and enter the Digital Age:

One might think that Social Selling is naturally becoming essential in the marketing and sales landscape… However, this is far from being obvious.

Indeed, the culture that prevails within many companies is opposed to the very philosophy of social networks. Discover the contradictory injunctions of Social Selling and the fundamental transformation required to use this formidable lever.

1. Social Selling & Social Media: the « globalized and open one-to-one »

The infinite possibilities offered by social networks, which are « globalized » and « open », are based on new communication rules and a certain number of « values » conveyed by these new media. Which ones?

- First, "trust": each member can publicly speak and widely disseminate what they want to their contacts. The company, its organization, and internal rules must therefore be based on the same principle! Have confidence in the ability of individuals to demonstrate responsibility in their speaking, the exchanges they make in their own name and on behalf of the company. It's impossible to imagine motivating a salesperson to speak to THEIR network while controlling what they're going to say!
- Next, individual initiative: on social networks, everyone is a media outlet, and anyone can take the initiative, both in developing their network and in speaking out. And this is regardless of their function and level of responsibility in the organization. It is better, as Orange does for example, to offer its employees a guide to Social Media best practices giving them reference points and very concrete practical advice, to enable them to make the most of social networks without harming their image or that of the company.²Accompany rather than control, therefore.
- Finally, "social" sharing: social networks are based on a collaborative approach and on the notion of "community." Asking a question, requesting a service / help on a subject, sharing an experience, getting in touch with people around the same subjects of interest, gathering contributions around a cause... so many powerful actions that social networks make possible immediately, but whose results are not always directly measurable in immediate commercial results. Using social networks from a business perspective therefore requires setting up new indicators to measure this commercial performance, which were previously in the marketing domain.

2. Social Selling and organization: "Hierarchy and silos" versus "initiative and collaboration"

And it is clear that the organization that prevails today in many companies and the current functioning of marketing and sales departments is actually quite radically opposed to these principles:

- 90% of companies are organized according to models defined in the 60s: a hierarchical organization, marked by a logic based on "command and control": clearly defined responsibilities, actions to be carried out, and control measures to ensure these actions are properly executed. In this context, it is difficult for managers to imagine their sales representatives speaking autonomously on their behalf and on behalf of the company... It is also difficult for the sales representatives themselves to take initiative without fearing potential negative feedback from their management or the marketing department regarding their social media activity!
- Within this type of organization, marketing departments have often tended, until now, to apply their old operating models to the new social media: marketing initiates campaigns, produces content, and positions itself as the guarantor of message integrity. Sales representatives are then "used" as simple "channels" or relays for disseminating the brand's messages, conceived upstream. However, we know that this doesn't work! When a sales representative's page relays the same content as the Corporate page word for word, their network quickly notices and simply turns away from them.
- Similarly, in terms of sales management, the last two decades have been marked by the implementation of measurement processes designed to optimize overall performance and ensure that the activities carried out by each person corresponded to what had been defined. The new measurement indicators specific to social networks are therefore confronted with the measurement of the effectiveness of commercial processes as it has been conceived until now... and this can bother some sales managers, especially when the salesperson spends a significant amount of time on it: building their profile, making it attractive, developing their network, identifying and following up on interesting prospects, it takes time!

It is therefore urgent to change the paradigm as Social Selling invites us to do! How? Why not start by trusting your sales representatives! For example, by implementing the necessary measures to train your teams and support them; or by supporting positive individual initiatives and by disseminating good practices internally...in short, by giving them the means to appropriately adopt social networks.

To develop your company's communication tools, consider webinars! Webinars highlight attractive content and promote the company's activities. However, they require some rules: in this webinar, learn how to organize a webinar that generates more participants and leads.

Sources:

: Source Invox
: Social Media Guidelines, Orange, http://www.orange.com/sirius/smg/FR_Guides_Medias_Sociaux.pdf

To understand the driving forces and identify which levers to pull to improve sales performance: knowing when, where, and how to act are the keys you'll discover in this article!

The engine is stalling; make sure you're fixing the right parts!

Have you clearly established your sales strategy?

How do you coordinate your marketing and sales resources to achieve your business goals? How does lead generation work? Is the customer and prospect portfolio well segmented? Do salespeople know who to visit as a priority? How often? On which product(s)? Do they know the high-margin customers...? Defining your sales strategy and sharing it helps align and focus team efforts in a coherent and effective manner, maximizing ROI and reducing the risk of missing out on interesting business!

Do you provide real business support to your teams? Not during appointments, but before.

If the answer to this question is no, you will exhaust your team! The ability of a sales management team to implement a lead generation system is now an integral part of the result! Today, direct prospecting (Outbound) activities, which are proving to be less and less effective, are gradually disappearing in favor of attraction activities (Inbound). Your website, through lead generation, gives the team a boost and prevents it from becoming exhausted.

How is the commercial action plan defined in your company?

The sales action plan is the operational translation, applied to the teams, of the commercial strategy. It is a roadmap that revolves around three axes:

The volume of activity (of each salesperson), i.e. the number of appointments, telephone contacts, proposals, sales, etc.
Focusing your efforts means aligning your activities with priority segments (hence the value of having customer segmentation!).
And finally, the quality of the activity, that is, the means that ensure the conversion rate.

What if it came from you? Honestly?

You have a strategy, a marketing plan, an annual action plan and the results are not following? Then, the most frequent cause is the lack of application in the operational implementation. Commercial performance also depends on the active and constructive role of commercial management: putting it all together, getting the engine running and staying attentive to know where and when to act. With managerial arrangements, simple and up-to-date dashboards, frequent exchanges, a supporting posture, he makes sure that the team moves forward!

What is the current level of each member of your team? Not in absolute terms, but right now.

To succeed, each salesperson on your team must have three optimized “energy reserves” to maintain a positive dynamic.

First, expertise: their offer, their products, their company, but also their market, their competitors, their customers, etc.
Then the business skill: that is to say, mastering sales and negotiation techniques, being able to adapt one's know-how and interpersonal skills, etc.
Finally, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: driven of course by remuneration, but above all by recognition, a taste for challenge, the atmosphere and team spirit, its inclusion in the meaning and ambition of the company...

How is customer information structured to enhance performance?

There is a lot of talk about data today, and while this topic concerns the general public, it also applies to your client portfolio! Information allows you to build your sales strategy more effectively upstream, refine individual knowledge of each client, and manage actions downstream. Whether it's an Excel spreadsheet to start with or a CRM to have a real tool, capturing, organizing, and exploiting client information is essential for sales performance!

Finally, do you have effective support?

This support is, in a way, the back office, all the resources implemented to help marketing and sales teams focus on their core business. They are of 3 main types:

- Sales administration, with order management, invoicing, follow-up, etc.
- Marketing professions, including specialists in digital marketing and research, etc.
- Customer service, which will maintain the quality of the relationship, but also provide useful information to maintain or develop the level of sales among your active customers...

Sales performance is therefore based on a set of 7 levers that constitute a system. Here, we can clearly see how they fit together and how a failure impacts the whole system.

An 8th lever predominates over the other 7: do you know which one?

…….YOU! What is your own dynamic beyond your role as facilitator? If you observe your functioning like a doctor examining a patient's body: are you more "Head" (analytical), Heart (emotional and relational), Hands (directive), or Feet (always running, action, action!)? Understand your own functioning with perspective and objectivity, and the other 7 levers will more easily align with you.

But sometimes there is not enough time to take a step back and act on all the levers. KESTIO precisely allows you, at the right pace, to guide actions and ensure that the engines are running smoothly, within the overall vision of the system!

To go further, you can download our White Paper: HOMO SAPIENS COMMERCIALIS: the salesperson in the Digital Age

You can also explore our innovative approaches to support leaders, managers, project managers, and sales representatives within startups and SMEs through this change:

The answer is obviously yes, except that… today's XEROX method is nothing like the XEROX method from 30 years ago! Beyond this sales school that made more than one salesperson dream, salespeople must adapt to a new environment, to a context where prospects, competitors, exchanges, tools, suppliers have significantly changed and reshaped the way of doing this key job for the survival of a company.

If, in the collective unconscious, XEROX's sales teams occupy a special place (that of a model of efficiency and performance complementing its commercial strategy), it is because the company, in its commercial management, was a pioneer in formalizing the sales process, in moving from the intuitive approach of the sales representative to the structured and reproducible approach of the salesperson. But also because it knew how to adapt! To understand what this profession requires today, let's draw inspiration from the practices of the best salespeople we support throughout the year, who show us how to maintain their level of performance in the age of multi-channel sales.

With "consultative selling" methods, the salesperson focused their entire interview on understanding their client's problems and gradually built the link with the products/services they could offer.

The salesperson's objective became, through the exercise of questioning (already with the famous "open questions"), to reveal the need and propose the solution to quickly validate the sale.

In 2017, customers no longer necessarily turn to the sales channel to understand their needs and find solutions, but to the internet, supplier and professional networks, trade shows, etc. They have direct and easy access to numerous sources of information and offers. Prospects can therefore seek comparative elements, form an idea, and define their needs independently, at their own pace, and whenever they wish. So, what can be the value of the salesperson in this context and during their interactions with the customer?

Bring a unique point of view and convictions

For greater sales performance, the salesperson must adopt a posture that is less oriented towards the products they have to sell and instead favors sincere and detached listening. Today, for the client to agree to be accompanied, it is important that the seller can understand their challenges in their own markets. They must step back to understand how the client seeks to maintain their position and advance it in their market environment. This implies an economic culture on sectoral trends in order to challenge the client's vision.

Through an open discussion driven by convictions, the salesperson will build an approach aimed at offering a point of view on the market, sharing potential risks identified in the sector, and helping their client consider alternatives. In other words, the salesperson must always master the tools of dialogue to build a rich and open conversation but also strengthen their ability to support their clients to enable them to make the best investment choices.

A good salesperson will seek to better understand their prospect's environment, offer insights, and become a consultant who challenges established positions. Therefore, their primary focus is no longer solely on their own sales targets but on their ability to offer innovative and unconventional perspectives to help their client make the best choices.

Provide value

The direct consequence of this posture encourages the salesperson to bring more value, making their job more rewarding.

In a complex environment where employees in a purchasing situation cannot analyze and have an expert view on all subjects, today's salesperson must be able to position themselves as a resource capable of helping them, challenging them, and guiding them towards the right decisions! This is how the profession is evolving. The new generation salesperson is shifting to an approach where they achieve their objectives because they are the result of their consulting and expert actions to capture the client's attention. Insofar as the salesperson is no longer the only point of entry for the prospect, it is essential that they focus on what they bring to the table. Let's not forget that a 3-minute demo video will always have more impact than a sales pitch.

To achieve this, the salesperson must be able to change their way of seeing and doing things, broaden their scope in order to provide their prospect with relevant and well-reasoned advice. And if they succeed in anticipating market developments and thus give their prospect a head start, it's a win!

We can clearly see that the profession is becoming more complete and complex. It is necessary to master the traditional methods in terms of organization, rigor, discipline, mentality, pace, knowledge and technical mastery (the stages of the interview remain a common thread), but it is also necessary to know how to activate differentiated responses and points of view adapted to the buyer. Salespeople who perform in a sustainable way are those who have been able to focus on the customer's interest, who have made them successful in their own market.

How will your sales representatives develop these new skills? This requires a long-term change management approach to strengthen your teams and enable them to become a key differentiator in your multi-channel go-to-market strategy.

To go further, you can download our White Paper: HOMO SAPIENS COMMERCIALIS: the salesperson in the Digital Age

You can also consult our innovative approaches to support leaders and managers in this change:

Your goal is simple: a client who has a pleasant and distinctive experience compared to your competitors is highly likely to become a loyal customer, or even a brand ambassador. Customer journey, as the path taken by all stakeholders, Customer experience, a distinctive travel experience for your brand.

How to achieve this goal? To answer this question, let's compare the different types of Experiences that you can define and offer to your customers and their impact on your customers' feelings.

The Ultimate Customer Experience

To begin, let's explore the simplified model (inspired by the one we offer as part of our exclusive CX Dynamics© method) of an a priori "ideal" customer journey.

Your entire customer journey is located in the enchantment zone. You are truly attentive to them and constantly surprise them at every point of interaction.

Ah! The sweet dream of all Customer Experience managers…!

Unfortunately, this Experience is very difficult to maintain in the long term: from your company's perspective, the efforts deployed to reach this level of service are likely to generate costs that could potentially erode your margin. Or, you'll have to charge a premium for all these services... Which, from the customer's perspective, risks producing a perverse effect: they will quickly be convinced that they are paying for this level of service and that the Experience offered is not exceptional, but normal from that point of view! Their perception will therefore gradually fall into the "neutral" zone as your interactions progress.

So, if this sales strategy isn't the Holy Grail, what Customer Experience should you aim for?

Before going any further, it is necessary to make a digression on the difference between the Experienced Experience and the Memorized Experience. To illustrate this subject, it is interesting to look at a 1996 psychological study that examined the perception of pain (rated from 0 to 10) by different patients.

Here is an excerpt from the study:

Pain levels as described by 2 patients during a surgical procedure.

Anyone of sound mind would prefer the experience of Patient A over that of Patient B: an intervention that causes the same level of pain (a peak of 8), but lasts much less time.

However, when patients were asked to rate the average level of pain they felt after the procedure, it had nothing to do with an average of the different peaks.

The average described by each patient was more like the highest peak and the last moment of the operation.

Thus, even if Patient B's operation was longer, and therefore certainly less pleasant than Patient A's, Patient B retains a less "violent" memory of the procedure (we wouldn't go so far as to say more pleasant...).

This phenomenon, highlighted by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, is known as the 'peak-end rule': the way individuals remember an experience is linked to its most intense moment and its ending. This digression sheds new light on what the customer experience should be like to be best remembered (and therefore lead the customer to be loyal and become your ambassador).

Discover KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

All topics related to sales performance with our experts:

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, CEO

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

The dangers of a Neutral Experience

In light of this study, one might think that a "neutral" experience is enough to ensure a good level of customer loyalty. However, this is not the case, as we will see, and for several reasons.

A neutral customer experience is often what most customers experience. It does not allow them to be loyal and at the first opportunity pushed by the competition, they will gladly consume elsewhere.

In addition, if an obstacle occurs during the process, they will retain a vivid image of this obstacle, and you will very likely have lost them for good.

Target key moments to delight the customer

As you will have understood, it becomes particularly important to ensure 1 (or even 2 or 3) key moments throughout the journey where you will delight your customers.

Firstly, to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and secondly, to prevent the slightest problem from causing you to lose your customers permanently.

In this example, the customer is very likely to overlook a rather disastrous purchase experience and be pleased to have purchased a product that satisfies them every day.

Regarding the Importance of After-Sales Service

The "peak-end rule" theory also explains why it is very important to have an efficient after-sales service. This is potentially the last step in their journey, which will greatly affect their perception of the overall quality of the Customer Experience you have offered them.

Moreover, when we conduct workshops on this and ask people in the room to give us real-life examples of positive Customer Experience, 80% of customers tell an anecdote with a problem brilliantly (or surprisingly) resolved by customer service.

And do you know why?
Because it always makes a good story to tell.

From Storytelling of the Customer Experience

All the stories we are used to seeing and hearing since we were little include a hero who starts from a rather flat (neutral) initial situation, goes through a moment of great difficulty (disenchantment), but ends with a happy ending (moment of delight).

The story is often even more successful if a mini moment of enchantment precedes the great disillusionment.

For your customers to remember the Experience you have given them and for them to tell their loved ones about it, it is therefore useful to design your journey according to this scenario.

Of course, we are not talking about creating moments of disappointment along the way, but about identifying the main stages where a disappointing experience can occur in order to counter it as quickly and effectively as possible so that your customers have a nice story to tell. :)

Did you know that 95% of your success is linked to your state of mind? To learn how to manage your emotional load more effectively, discover the Triad method in this webinar:

This article uses (in a simplified version) modeling from KESTIO's exclusive CX Dynamics© methodology to measure the quality of the Customer Experience throughout the journey.

It was inspired by a Smashing Magazine article.