Andrei Vestemeanu - partner and co-founder of his start-up Wisembly - called on the services of KESTIO to train his team of 10 salespeople and optimize his sales organization with a view to improving his conversion rates.
A look back at the results of this approach.
1- The initial objective: from sales training to sales organization optimization
A. Vestemeanu: Wisembly is a start-up that publishes a collaborative solution for meeting preparation and facilitation, enabling the companies that use it to gain in productivity by making their meetings more effective and more engaging thanks to digital technology. Founded 6 years ago, the company now has over 600 customers on 5 continents, and works with 80% of CAC 40 listed companies. It already has around forty employees and 2 offices in Paris and London.
"Initially, I contacted KESTIO to train our sales people in complex sales methods, with the idea of giving them a common background and a homogeneous way of working for the team."
In the course of our discussions, we quickly realized that beyond this question, it would also be interesting to work on the " sales organization " aspect upstream of this training action to have an optimal impact on our results.
On the subject of opportunity conversion, for example, a diagnosis carried out by the consultant enabled us to observe a 20% transformation rate (between the number of discoveries and the number of signatures). This means that 80% of sales time had previously been wasted!
2- Main stages of support: diagnosis, sales organization optimization, sales training and coaching
The KESTIO consultant(Dominique SEGUIN, editor's note) first carried out our " Sales Diag©": he conducted interviews or administered questionnaires to all the team members concerned (Associate Directors, sales, marketing and HR managers), to learn about our organization and analyze it in the light of a pre-established grid of criteria.
"The aim was to assess the efficiency of our current sales organization and identify priority areas for improvement."
This enabled him to formulate a number of concrete recommendations, which were presented to us at a feedback meeting. The areas for improvement identified concerned, for example, the segmentation of our customer portfolio into "gold, silver and bronze" customers according to their potential.
On this basis in particular, we were then able to define the right "sales intensity" (in terms of frequency, time and resources) to allocate to our customers, the right "mix" between physical, telephone and video appointments (to reduce travel time) based on a better analysis of the stakes of each sales appointment.
On the basis of this initial analysis, we then organized 2 workshop meetings between the 3 Associate Directors and the Sales Director, to precisely define the outlines of the target organization towards which we are moving in our sales management.
About a month after this work, we set up the sales training courses:
-
- 2 days' training in the Chessboard Method© for the 10 sales representatives, in the presence of the 3 associates
- Then individual coaching sessions(remotely, for sales reps based in London, editor's note), at the rate of one 1-hour session per month for each sales rep.
These sessions enable everyone to call on the consultant according to their needs: they can focus on a particular deal to be accompanied in the investigation of the account or review the basics of the method.
The Sales Manager is present during the coaching sessions. At the end of the sessions, the Sales Manager, the consultant and I systematically conduct a global debriefing.
In particular, this enables us to share information about the managerial handover and the areas of work adopted following the coaching session, so that we can continue tosupport the sales person between sessions andanchor their skills.
3- Results: better allocation of sales resources, increased sales productivity and optimized conversion rates.
During Sales Diag©, we observed that contact strategy was essentially based on physical appointments. However, in the multi-channel era, it is possible to develop more efficient and less costly strategies. We therefore began to carry out the discovery phase by telephone.
"By transferring this activity to a telephone channel, we doubled the number of weekly contacts at iso perimeter of resources, which is the productivity equivalent of 6 more salespeople at no extra cost!"
In addition, to meet the objective of improving conversion rates, we have developed a GO/NO GO grid with the help of KESTIO . Combined with the implementation of a complex sales training program (Méthode de l'Echiquier©), this now enables us to identify more quickly those opportunities that will not succeed because they do not meet the necessary conditions.
"This time previously lost on low-qualified opportunities has been transferred to prospecting and more in-depth work dedicated to opportunities with a higher probability of winning to further optimize our chances of winning his business."
On a more general level, we have clarified the segmentation of our customer portfolio, and we now have a common nomenclature for discussing deals: this facilitates exchanges, encourages dialogue and mutual understanding. We work better as a team.
The initial level of appropriation varies from person to person, which is whyindividual coaching is essential. We regularly need to go back to the basics of the method.
As far as sales organization is concerned, we are now able to allocate available resources in line with our defined priorities. This will be particularly useful in winning new customers and pursuing our international expansion!
To find out more about sales performance :
KESTIO is a company specializing in services and solutions to improve Customer Performance. For over 10 years, we have been helping companies to secure and sustainably increase their revenues, by acting on all the levers that enable them to acquire and retain customers.
Other articles from our blog that may be of interest to you:
