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On this occasion, he was interviewed by KOBAN, the organizer of the evening. To give you a sneak preview of what promises to be a very interesting evening. We in turn publish this interview, which originally appeared on the KOBAN website.

What will be the key messages on the evening of December 14?

Inbound marketing and its accompanying tools now provide the means for marketing and sales to work together. The fact that these 2 departments complement each other seems obvious, and yet... the reality in companies is that they are still often poorly connected. For us, this is essential, and is part of the best practices to be implemented for greater efficiency.

So we're going to be talking about lead follow-up and qualification?

Yes, because when marketing identifies a lead, it's counter-productive to pass it on to sales right away. There's still too much of a tendency to generate a volume of leads, rather than work on qualifying and profiling them. Lead scoring and lead nurturing methods enable us to provide the sales force with useful leads, and put sales energy in the right place at the right time. At the same time, we'll be discussing the role of organization and processes in ensuring smooth communication between marketing and sales.

A few words about KESTIO and your expertise

KESTIO is a consulting and training company focused onimproving Sales Performance and Customer Experience. We employ around twenty people, based in Lyon and Paris. We support companies and their managers through 4 main areas of expertise:

-Sales performance
-Customer experience
-CRM tools tools
-Experience and the digital transformation of companies

Our approach is based on viewing a company's customers as its most important asset.

All the levers we can help them use tooptimize customer acquisition and loyalty.

This evening will provide concrete action keys for implementing and working towards an Inbound Marketing strategy.

To discover even more content created in collaboration with KOBAN, download the white paper "How to optimize my business model".

While this may seem obvious to everyone when it comes to consumers, and therefore the BtoC sector, it's less common to mention the fact that this trend is also affecting corporate buyers, with a direct impact on the business of companies operating in the BtoB sector. And yet, this is what has led a ^Forrester1 study to announce the imminent death of the BtoB sales function! (On this subject, see our article The salesperson is dead. Long live the sales consultant!)

Ignoring these changes, or misunderstanding their meaning, means running the risk of (continuing to) offer sales systems that are ill-suited to today's reality and your customers' expectations... A pointless and dangerous risk!

Do you have the right sales system in place, or are you lagging behind your buyers when it comes to boosting your sales performance? Read on to find out.

1- What has changed, and why

But what are these changes in professional purchasing behavior, and what are their underlying factors?

There are 4 main trends:

1.1. A change in audience and buyer generation :

According to the "Demand Gen Report" and the "B2B Path To Purchase Study 2014" by Google and Millward Brown Digital, Generation Y, born with the Internet, is now at the forefront of B2B purchasing potential.

46% of today's professionals are from Generation Y, an increase of 70% in three years!

Young, dynamic, more intrepid and, above all, completely immersed in digital technology, the growing presence of "digital natives" partly explains the importance of social networks and new technologies in the purchasing process.

And make no mistake about it: despite their young age, these professionals now have real decision-making power: still according to the same study, 81% of them are in charge of purchasing decisions concerning their perimeter.

The profile of BtoB prospects has therefore evolved considerably.

1.2. The supremacy of the Internet in the information process :

What does this evolution of your audience mean for you? First and foremost, the way they access information about your offers.

According to a survey published by Fevad and QualiQuanti (a marketing research institute), the majority of professionals now use the Internet to prepare their purchases. 55% of them report a growing predilection for the web: search engines (by a large majority), supplier websites and social networks are now among your buyers' primary sources of information about your products and services.

Another important aspect of their behavior is that they avidly consult expert and/or peer opinions before making any purchase. The "official" information circulated by suppliers is therefore analyzed and weighed up against the testimonials and feedback of their customers.

B-to-B buyers, who once favored face-to-face and telephone channels, now favor responsiveness and the plurality of possibilities offered by the web.

They no longer need the supplier's help to initiate or even finalize their purchasing process, as the Forrester study shows: 93% of B2B customers prefer to buy online "once they've decided what to buy".

Thanks to the Internet, every customer has independent access, from any place and at any time, to advice and opinions on how to solve the problems they encounter, as well as information on the products and services that interest them.

The other side of the coin for him (and for you): today's BtoB buyer is overwhelmed by content from various service providers, partners and analysts. Their search for relevant information means they have to be highly selective, and quickly get rid of advertising content.

1.3. The growing importance of social networks

72% of BtoB buyers use social networks to find out about products and services beforehand. Of these, only 22% then contact the supplier directly.²

Executives and prospects have a clear preference for LinkedIn, a professional network, and blogs, which provide a more detailed opinion on a subject.

There's nothing easier for a buyer than to log on to discussion and self-help forums to collect best practices or standard specifications. These collaborative BtoB modes are booming, with advice and recommendations (from suppliers among others) becoming increasingly powerful.

The expansion of the buyer's network has truly changed his traditional decision-making model.

The social networking giants have also geared their advertising offerings to target the BtoB sector. Facebook, for example, is working hard to develop its own professional network, "Facebook at work". Even if it is still struggling to win over this sector, it is already available on the Apple Store.

1.4. Increased risk perception, a longer and more complex decision-making process

Risk is still a predominant factor in purchasing decisions. Tense economic conditions and uncertainty about the future are all factors that drive buyers to pay close attention to cost and value.

They put pressure on suppliers to lower the price of their solutions and demonstrate their added value and return on investment to all decision-makers.

Buyers' perception of risk is taking on such dimensions that the result is increasingly long sales cycles and a multiplication of interlocutors who share responsibility for the decision and, consequently, the potential risks.

Buyers therefore spend more time in the information phase. They take the time to compare services, call or meet suppliers, and examine all possible solutions.

When they enter the purchasing process, they expect salespeople to support them in their analysis and reflection, helping them to clarify their needs, determine the key success factors and challenge competing solutions to enable them to make the most appropriate choice in light of their challenges and objectives.

2. How to get on board

Faced with these rapid and radical changes, suppliers absolutely have to upgrade their sales processes!

Generation Y buyers, the explosion in web usage, the advent of social networks and the desire to control risks have permanently altered the situation: increasingly autonomous in their purchasing cycle, BtoB buyers have developed new reflexes.

Of course, the diversity of products and services offered to professionals (from ink cartridges to airliners) makes it impossible to model a desirable evolution applicable to all.

However, 2 main models can be distinguished:

2.1. Your company sells "everyday" products

In the case of "commodity" products such as ink cartridges, the added value is so low (which is not to say that the product is of poor value!) that online sales, without a sales contact, will become the rule. The challenge is essentially e-marketing, and involves offering customers the benefits they associate with using the web channel:

- Time-saving: immediate, real-time information on products and their availability, access to order history, ease of ordering, etc.
- Reliable product information : easy-to-access, clear and comprehensive information on product comparisons, prices, delivery times and test samples.
- Order tracking: real-time tracking of orders, with direct dispatch of useful information at each stage of processing, and additional functionalities such as SMS alerts.

2.2. Your company sells high value-added products and services

When it comes to high value-added products or services, such as airliners or enterprise software, it's no longer a single salesperson who makes the sale, but a whole team, whose size and areas of intervention are expanding (marketing, digital, sales, pre-sales research, development, customer relations...).

The challenges are to detect qualified leads, support customers in analyzing their problems, determine the most appropriate solution with the prospect's or customer's entire sphere of influence and decision-making, and be able to provide maximum value throughout this pre-sales phase.iétés to adapt an effective sales strategy.

To meet these challenges, we work closely with our customers on :

- Changes in sales practices: sales management needs to be adapted to encourage salespeople to change their approach to prospecting, conducting interviews and co-constructing sales proposals with their customers.
- The implementation of a sales coverage and intensity management system for the various customer segments, which puts the number of appointments indicator into perspective.
- Recruiting sales staff with new skills
- Development of management and control tools (e.g. CRM)
- Improving customer pathways and ensuring consistency between different sales channels
- Developing effective cooperation between sales, marketing, customer relations and pricing teams...

There are so many facets to this transformation that it can be difficult to master.

However, the slow pace of change in sales processes is leading customers to eliminate certain market players who have failed to jump on the bandwagon... This means that sales systems (too) are not immune to the tsunami of "uberization"!

Only companies that rise to these challenges will be able to stay at the forefront of sales efficiency, or conquer it!

What about you ? How are you adapting your sales systems to meet or anticipate your customers' purchasing expectations and practices?

Discover a tool to test your sales effectiveness. Just click on the link below to find out how dynamic your sales are, free of charge:

Sources :

1 Death of a (B2B) Salesman" by Forrester Research
2 Demand Gen Report
3 Key figures 2014 distance selling ECommerce

Collecting customer data is no longer enough - you have to act on it!

"2016 promises to be a lively year when it comes to customer relations. It will be a year in which companies that develop real efforts to improve customer relations will be rewarded, while those that have been downplaying their customers' needs for years will begin to wither away," confides Forrester in its study " Top 10 Success Factors to Determine Who Wins And Who Fails in the Age of the Customer " (1).

According to the report, customers will reward companies that anticipate individual needs and make use of the data they collect. On the contrary, companies that constantly have to ask for basic information, and are unable to "recognize" a customer, will start to lose them.

In short, Business Intelligence must create added value! Data collection must truly serve the customer experience!

Customers will no longer tolerate companies with amnesia when it comes to knowing their preferences.

explained Gene Alvarez, managing vice president at Gartner, at the Gartner Customer 360 Summit in September 2015 (2). It is therefore imperative for companies to recognize their customers and provide them with relevant content that demonstrates real effort.

Respect for confidentiality and privacy as a differentiating value

Consumers are used to brands collecting data, and are more or less in favor of it... But one thing is certain: if personal information is collected, then these consumers expect it to be useful!

Consumers demand that brands use data before they interact! All your customers know that you collect data, and they'll accept the idea more readily if it serves the experience they have with your brand.

To act, you need data. But be careful how you collect it. Data confidentiality and privacy have become key issues. We can no longer confine ourselves to the simple "legal" aspect, or even see data collection as a risk. Quite the contrary, in fact. It's a real opportunity to stand out from the crowd. We need to explain what the data collected is used for, and how it can be used to personalize our offering.

Customer involvement will thus become a lever for improving the relationship! In other words? According to Forrester, brands that get their customers more involved - through their loyalty programs, for example - will see the benefits.

Companies that launch customer-focused operations will gain real and lasting differentiation. Business as usual is doomed to failure.

Customers need to be involved in defining the brand and designing its products and services: who's in a better position to know their needs than they are? This is something our customer Castorama has understood very well: by means of questionnaires delivered via in-store touch-screen terminals, some of its sales outlets collect the opinions of their customers directly. This has enabled them to adapt the working hours of their teams, further improve customer service and develop new ideas based on reliable data obtained in real time.

Since the heart of customer relations is based on the personalization and contextualization of the offer, the consumer must be strongly involved, ideally at a very, very early stage. This is what our consultants contribute to, particularly when they implement a customer experience improvement coaching program .

Are you ready for these changes?

Sources :

(1) Forrester study: https://solutions.forrester.com/aoc-predictions

(2) Gartner study: http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/the-customer-experience-in-2020/

(Those who already know KESTIO will recognize in these actions our values: # 2 Act as an agent of change, #5 Promote the transmission of knowledge and #7 Be passionate and proud of our profession as consultants!) To tell you more about the activities of this international organization, we've asked Maylis Portmann, Fellowship Manager at Ashoka, to take the floor.

Can you tell us a little about Ashoka?

Ashoka is the world's^leading network of social entrepreneurs.

Founded 30 years ago by the American Bill Drayton (formerly of Mc Kinsey and head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), the association is now present in 80 countries, supporting 3,000 social entrepreneurs in the realization of their projects. These are innovative projects with a real social impact.

Currently, for example, we support projects as diverse as :

- The development of digital tools and edutainment content to enable autistic children to develop their potential, and to provide appropriate support for those involved in their education (parents, teachers, specialized educators, etc.): LearnEnjoy project, which democratizes access to the best educational strategies, so that all children with special needs have the right to them without discrimination, led by Gaele Regnault.
- The fight against cultural isolation and lack of information in difficult or extreme situations (refugee camps, developing countries) through the "IdeasBox" concept (Media library in tent "kit": multimedia tools and library, 100 m2 space assembled in flight cases held on 2 pallets, designed by Philippe Stark). Project led by Jeremy Lachal and the association Bibliothèques sans Frontières (co-founded by historian Patrick Weil).
- The implementation of adapted physical activity programs as a genuine preventive therapeutic tool in the service of Sustainable Health for sensitive target groups: the elderly or disabled, physically demanding professions, to help them maintain their health and autonomy and prevent chronic pathologies. Siel Bleu project supported by Jean Michel Ricard.

Our mission: to identify and support innovative social entrepreneurs, to foster encounters and collaboration between these social entrepreneurs, public institutions and the business world, and finally, to contribute to the emergence of the next generations of change-makers through an "education" component.

For the mobile application project to track and manage water consumption, for example, one of the elements of our support program was to put the project leaders in touch with KESTIO consultants to help them approach and convince their potential prescribers (in this case, major companies in the insurance sector, in particular) to encourage the development of sales of their product.

What is a social entrepreneur?

When we talk about social entrepreneurs, we mean the word "entrepreneur" in the broadest sense, i.e. independently of the notion of a company's legal status. We support projects with associative or foundation status, as well as companies in the strict sense of the term.

A social entrepreneur, as we understand it, is first and foremost an innovative project leader whose idea is strong enough to make a difference in his or her field. What counts is the project's interest, its innovative character and its anticipated impact, i.e. its potential capacity to solve a large-scale societal problem.

In practice,the sectors most often concerned are education, health, human rights, sustainable development, integration and the fight against exclusion...

Ashoka's core business is to identify, select and support these potential companies, to give them a real boost to their development and ensure the conditions for their "spin-off".

What is your role within Ashoka?

I'm in charge of managing the Fellows program (the name we give to the social entrepreneurs we support) for France, Belgium and Switzerland.

I organize the actions put in place with the "^Pro-bono1 " partners of which you are a part, i.e. the various players (public authorities and private companies) ready to commit to giving their time and sharing their expertise in a co-construction approach with social entrepreneurs and members of civil society to move their projects forward.

In concrete terms, this translates into the organization of themed meeting days or regular workshops , during which fellows benefit from expert input on various subjects (legal, commercial, HR, communication, know-how, etc.) and role-playing exercises enabling them to co-construct with the partners present.

During the weekend recently held in Lyon, for example, the fellows worked with KESTIO on best practices for approaching a partner or customer and presenting their project or solution. They also took part in workshops led by SIMPLON on design thinking, or in a Lego Scrum to learn in a fun, team-based way how to manage a project and meet their customers' expectations.

How do you measure the impact of your work with Fellows in the field?

To measure the impact of our actions, we evaluate the spin-offs of the activities of the social entrepreneurs we support and their evolution over 5 and 10 years (impact studies, etc.). Measuring Effectiveness).

This allows us to know, for example, that 94% of the social entrepreneurs selected by Ashoka continue to develop their project 5 years after joining the network: a sign of their viability and the relevance of the development conditions implemented at the outset.

Such a "success rate" is no coincidence: Fellow status is obtained after a demanding selection process, lasting 6 to 8 months! But it is then "acquired for life".

Two other figures that make us particularly happy and proud: 91% of these projects are replicated (in other countries, for example), and 54% of them have an impact on policy in their own country! This is proof that they provide an effective response to real, shared social challenges.

In very concrete terms, when we support the C&A Foundation, for example, which researches and identifies players in the textile value chain who implement production conditions that respect the environment and people, we are actively helping to advance issues relating to health, respect for human rights, social and economic development and respect for the environment!

From a more qualitative point of view, the impact study carried out among fellows in France, Switzerland and Belgium by MFR Consulting reveals what Ashoka represents for them : a "gas pedal" to maximize the potential of the business and its creator; a community of peers and expert resources; and lastly, a place of trust, support and experience that enables them to avoid the pitfalls that are sometimes fatal to this type of project.

1 Pro Bono: abbreviation of the Latin expression "pro bono publico", meaning "for the public good". Pro bono refers to the commitment of volunteers who give meaning to their work by getting involved in initiatives of general interest free of charge.

To find out more about the organization's actions and projects, take a look at the Ashoka website!

Want to take your values to the next level? Support Ashoka or Become a Pro-bono partner
Do you know any innovative social projects? Propose a Fellow

We thought it only natural to share this point of view with our own readers!

What role does CRM play in your customer approach?

Dominique Seguin: CRM is an essential part of customer relations. You wouldn't think of working today without smartphones, e-mail and other time-saving tools! CRM, the application for managing customer relations, enables much more than the technical and prohibitive image that salespeople have of it: you can manage your follow-ups, analyze your figures, do emailing, store your customer data for other departments in the company, evaluate your sales performance...

Salespeople don't like CRMs because they feel they have to re-enter their working days to fill in tables that nobody really reads. Like any tool, it has its constraints, let's face it, but we've observed among our customers that no experienced salesperson would dare to manage their opportunities on Excel, their reminders on a notepad, or their forecasts on a blank sheet of paper. The challenge of getting teams to take ownership of the system is therefore particularly high, and this requires a genuine perception of the associated benefits!

The subject isn't new (we even carried out and published a study in 2012 entitled: "Sales reps and CRM, why so much hatred?"), but it remains topical.

Our advice: seize this tool as an opportunity and make the most of its features!

In today's digital age, how do you interest prospects over the phone without sounding intrusive?

Dominique Seguin: The rules don't change! If we're interesting, people will be interested! If not, they tell us very simply: "I'm not interested".

How do we interest our prospects? By telling them about THEIR concerns. Either we find material available on the web and use that as a hook, or we bring in one or two topics specific to the target market and see if they bite.

Don't get your hopes up about call-to-appointment rates: the average is less than 10%. But if you prepare well with the right pitch, you can double your performance.

What role do you see for social media in boosting sales?

Dominique Seguin: Let's just say that the sales function is on the verge of uberization!

50% of the purchasing process takes place without a salesperson. Digital technology has become this profession's main competitor.

How can you hope to be more relevant and demonstrative than a 2-minute 3D Youtube video that highlights all the product's features with a nice soundtrack, just when you need it? You have to create value elsewhere!

Be even more differentiating in your understanding of the customer's issues (stop asking them what they want, ask them why they want it!), put a value on the cost of the current situation and the dysfunction observed, and finally stay present in their minds after you've left their office.

Social media is a fabulous opportunity to stay in touch with the customer after the appointment stage.

It used to be the brochure that did the job, but now you can showcase your track record, your expertise and your latest news with up-to-date, interactive tools.

In other words, you can influence and promote your recommendations. In short, if this is the end of the brochure, it's the beginning of sales 2.0, and it makes the job even sharper and more exciting!

Beyond the tools, what makes a salesperson a top performer?

Dominique Seguin: Method, method and method! Beyond the reputed innate sales "talent", it's the method that makes the difference. In sales, as in any other profession, method is key.

Do you think a baker wonders every night how to make good bread? No, he follows a tried and tested recipe every night. It's less tiring, and he's sure to be able to serve his customers in the morning!

Good salespeople don't reinvent the wheel every day, hoping to get the right smile at the right time, or the right formula, or the right product...

The bait is less important than the trap itself! It's a bit of a stiff mantra, but it's so true. The trap is the sales techniques that are repeated every day to constantly improve the gesture.

Very good salespeople, well versed in these principles, sometimes fall flat on their faces in the negotiation phase... Why is this and how can it be avoided?

Dominique Seguin: The main problem is lack of preparation. Hard training, easy war! Most salespeople prepare by applying the handbrake. That's a recipe for failure, and the good old way of resorting to the salesperson's weakness, begging his manager for a price cut.

Good salespeople are seen in the bends, not the straights. Negotiation has nothing to do with sales. Great negotiators are not salespeople. And the reverse can be true.

A good negotiator will be able to create a new territory for both parties that does not exist at the start of the negotiation, with each party initially intent on protecting its own.

The challenge is to move away from this vision and towards the search for a new configuration. Otherwise, we're left counting the points, and in this game, it's often the customer who wins!

Let's change the frame of reference. The real issue for a customer is not winning the negotiation, it's taking advantage as quickly as possible of the benefits brought by the coveted solution that justified the purchase, to solve the identified problem (expensive machine, service too slow, inefficient process...).

You've been a Sales Performance Consultant with KESTIO for almost three years now. How would you sum up these years?

Dominique Seguin: After 18 years in operational sales, from the field to managing a P&L of 180 million euros, I thought the changeover would be easy.

I can say that my best decision after 6 months was to wipe the slate clean and learn a new trade, one where you first think before you act, where you study before you decide.

Our job is to help our customers approach their challenges differently, because our time is not theirs, and that's what we bring them.

An operative doesn't need a consultant to ensure day-to-day execution, he knows how to do it very well and is the man of the art. We'll never know our customers, their teams, their culture, their history, their own customers as well as we do....

The consultant brings the ability to make complexity simple, to bear witness to best practices in all sectors, to identify what causes failure, dysfunctions, to find the right balance to calmly tackle bottlenecks, and to bring about change in employee practices through genuine, long-term support, without the pressure of numbers.

We help our customers find space in their day-to-day lives, so they can better prepare for the future and enable their teams to stay ahead in their markets.

My operational background is of great use to me because I understand my customers' lives, I know their doubts, their desire to succeed, the incredible energy they put into achieving their objectives every day with their teams, and we often provide the little spark that makes everything move...

Maybe also because at KESTIO, we don't take ourselves too seriously, and that makes all the difference when a Comex entrusts us with a serious subject. They don't need any more complication than their subject already gives them!

What's your favourite mobile application?

Dominique Seguin: I love Pocket because, being an infovore, I like to eat content all the time. Between newsletters, monitoring, blogs and news sites, how can I find an application that brings together all my playlists easily and intuitively? Pocket does it so well, I can't do without it.

KESTIO supports companies (from SMEs to large groups) in acquiring and retaining customers, through its dual expertise in Sales Performance and Customer Experience.

A recent study published by the American consultancy Forrester predicts the imminent death of the field sales profession in the face of e-commerce. However, a different outcome is possible for BtoB field salespeople, provided they rethink their positioning and adopt a consulting posture, notably through the quality of their questioning and a more "customer-centric" approach.

What are the other components of the sales consultant posture, and how can you make them your own? That's what we'll be looking at in Part 2.

Position yourself as an expert

While listening is the key to creating the conditions for a relationship of trust, you also need to know how to demonstrate your added value.

In the corporate world, the formalization of a project often proves delicate and complex. Even though they are becoming more and more knowledgeable and autonomous, customers still expect their sales representatives to have the cutting-edge expertise they need to refine the contours of their project.

Buyers are looking for sales people capable of challenging them: analyzing a situation, carrying out a diagnosis and modeling the data collected. This will enable them to formalize and synthesize the guiding ideas of their project, and thus help them to "sell" it internally.

The sales consultant must be perceived as an expert, from whom the customer expects advice. But be careful not to confuse "advice" with "solution proposal"... That would again be tantamount to trying to sell something!

The expert salesperson must express and take responsibility for his or her convictions on a given subject, and lead the other person to react in turn. They must be able to deliver a point of view and develop it, not to convince, but to shed factual light on their customer's concerns.

The salesperson's contribution to value can also be measured by a "profitability" approach.

All companies are concerned with return on investment. The sales consultant's job is to help the customer bring his idea to fruition, so he needs to offerindicators to measure the effectiveness and profitability of his solution - the famous ROI.

In this way, the customer is no longer focused on the cost of the solution, but on the financial gain or savings it will bring.

Rely on reformulating the customer's issues

Last but not least, sales consultants demonstrate their value by their ability to integrate and reformulate the issues and concerns of their contacts.

On the one hand, reformulation helps to avoid misinterpretation: if the sales rep has missed something important, the other person will have the opportunity to clarify it without feeling attacked. On the other hand, a well-mastered reformulation demonstrates professionalism and leads the other person in the desired direction. Last but not least, rephrasing the issues at stake will give rise to new questions that will allow the introduction of new ideas, suggestions or proposals.

By bringing together all the components mentioned above (quality of questioning, contribution of expertise, demonstration of the added value of his solution, reformulation of the customer's challenges, etc.), the sales consultant creates the conditions for a state of mind based on collaboration and partnership.

Register as a partner

The advisory role requires us toact like a consultant,adopting a benevolent attitude towards our customers to help them define their needs, move their project forward and make it a reality.

In a company, it's a good idea to be accompanied by an outside consultant to help you "sell" your idea internally and convince the forces involved and concerned.

It's important to partner with him in the success of the project, and to offer to act as an orchestra conductor for the various teams, making him understand - tactfully - that salespeople and customers share the same interest: the progress of the project.

Identify decision-makers

In this pre-sales/sales phase, the salesperson also needs toidentify the people involved in the decision, and then gather their vision of the process underway. This step will enable the salesperson to remove any obstacles, give meaning to the process, encourage buy-in, and begin to commit all parties to the decision. Naturally, he will keep his privileged interlocutor informed of the progress of his contacts to consolidate the relationship of trust.

The sales consultant may propose "working meetings", or "co-construction workshops", or even a "meeting to summarize understanding of the issues".

These meeting formats are far more effective and have a far greater impact than the classic "presentation meetings", "discovery meetings" and "proposal handovers", which are still the panacea of the all-purpose salesperson.

Nevertheless, customers sometimes close the door to this mode of operation. We need to analyze the real reasons for such a refusal. But very often, a blockage of this kind is a sign of a lack of desire to work together. The question then arises as to whether or not to continue discussions with the customer. In other words: Go / No Go?

A No Go will enable you to avoid spending unnecessary time and commercial energy on a deal that has little chance of succeeding, so that you can concentrate on more promising projects.

In a nutshell...!

The Consulting posture relies above all on the salesperson's ability to put aside his or her need to sell and concentrate solely on listening and advising.

In this way, the act of sale becomes an act of non-sale.

And this paradigm shift is not insignificant! Positioning oneself as an expert cannot be improvised or decreed. Salespeople wishing to adopt a consultative posture must cultivate and develop additional interpersonal skills, which have become indispensable today to win a customer's trust, including: mastering their discourse, behavior and rhetoric, and the art of questioning and bouncing back.

On this note, we wish you ~~very fine sales~~ ! Sorry, very good advice... ; )

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

¹External resources :

L’article de forrester.com n’est plus en ligne, cependant vous pouvez retrouver les informations traitant le sujet en cliquant ici

http://www.actionco.fr/Thematique/business-1018/breves/etude-forrester-fin-commerciaux-btob-257575.htm

Our exclusive methods and training modules on this topic:

- La Méthode de l'Echiquer© - Key account and complex sales
- KESTIO System© sales training modules - Sales effectiveness and dialogue tools
- La Méthode DISC© - Behavioral analysis for sales reps and managers

Is the field sales "species" irrevocably doomed to extinction? Or does it have a chance to adapt and survive? Here,KESTIO gives you some keys to emerging victorious from the process of natural selection!

Buyer Power!

According to the ^Forrester1 report, this upheaval is largely due to changes in customer purchasing practices and behaviors.

They now have powerful tools at their disposal, which mean they don't need a sales rep to deliver a presentation brochure: websites, social networks, comparators, e-ecommerce platforms. It's far less costly and more effective than an interview.

The widespread use of these tools has accentuated theautonomy of customers and buyers. As a result, the perception of the value of the sales profession seems to have never been so challenged.

Nevertheless, meeting with a sales representative remains necessary, but for different reasons and at different stages in the purchasing and decision-making process: to be supported in your thinking and helped in defining a need or a project, to understand the specific features of a solution, to negotiate, and finally, to benefit from advice.

The consulting approach therefore appears to be the best possible outcome for the sales profession, as it is through the provision of advice and expertise that salespeople demonstrate their added value. So, how can a salesperson move from a Push to a Pull approach, in other words, from a "Sales" approach to a "Consulting" posture?

How do you change (or mutate?) into the "BtoB salesperson of the future"? That's what we're going to explain in this 2-part saga...

Is the salesperson an inveterate egomaniac?

The mountaineer who, at the foot of a mountain, focuses solely on the summit and the time it will take to reach it, loses sight of what's essential: his technique, the precision of his movements, and thus his safety.

Salespeople face the same pitfall. By focusing too much on his product and his sale, he will miss his real objective: winning his customer's trust. To achieve this, they need to focus on a single objective: the quality of the exchange with their customer.

However, many factors influence the salesperson's state of mind at the start of a relationship: the anxiety of not meeting targets on time, the obsession - conscious or unconscious - with making a sale.

These factors lead him to focus on his own objectives and to distance himself from the customer's interests.

The salesperson must mentally forget about closing, and set the sole aim of initiating a quality relationship, based above all on trust. The Consulting posture involves adopting a mindset resolutely focused on the customer's interests.

Let's stop thinking like egomaniacs and become " customer centric "!

The consulting posture: the science of listening and the art of questioning

Most of the time, people are quite willing to talk about themselves, and like to talk about their business. Customers and buyers have the same desire. So we have to be interested in them. Showing interest in the person, focusing on the quality of the relationship, demonstrating empathy... all this leads your interlocutor to open up.

But is it enough to listen to a customer to discover all their secrets, and by that I mean their needs and projects? Do you become a customer's confidant overnight?

The answer is no, at least if we remain focused on finding "needs" or "problems".

By definition, a customer doesn't have a problem. On the other hand, a customer - a company - may have an ambition, wish to develop a program, optimize its resources, reinforce its growth or launch a new product...

And when faced with such objectives, customers don't necessarily have any fixed ideas about the levers available to them.

The primary objective is to gather information to understand and analyze the customer's environment. Data collection is king.

The essence of the consulting posture lies in the quality of questioning and the ability to bounce back on the information gathered to broaden the scope and go deeper into the issues at hand. The sales consultant must focus solely on researching and understanding the customer's issues. The art of questioning is tomake the customer aware of his or her needs, often expressed implicitly, and to formalize them into explicit requirements.

From then on, the salesperson focuses on finding the causes (the "why") and not on solving the problems (the "how").

The consulting posture also involves stepping into the customer's shoes. The salesperson must immerse himself in the discussion as if with a friend, in a disinterested way. He must assume that he has nothing to sell; he is simply there to listen and understand.

For the customer, these questions of understanding are marks of interest that reinforce trust and position the sales person as an ally rather than an adversary.

Listening and the art of questioning are very powerful psychological levers, enabling us to uncover much broader customer issues than a single need.

However, they are not the only components of a "consulting posture". To achieve "status" as a sales consultant and prove your worth to your customers, you'll need to develop and combine other skills (providing specialized expertise, ROI-oriented approach, reformulation of customer issues and identification of decision-makers). We'll tell you all about them in the article : the salesman is dead, long live the advisory salesman, episode 2 !

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

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Our exclusive methods and training modules on this topic:

1- What qualities do your salespeople need to develop to improve their results?

Sales is a profession in which there is no medal for second best. That's why, in addition to sales techniques per se, it's essential toapply a sales method to limit the risk of failure and optimize results. A number of recent studies have shown that the application of a sales method - whatever it may be - can boost sales results by 20%!

Without a common thread, you spend your time reinventing your approach to each case, being tactical and reactive. It's exhausting and not very effective.

In addition to method, you need qualities that are specific to this highly relational and demanding mission. You need to be tenacious, organized, mentally strong, have a strong capacity for work, but also be focused on the other person: indeed, in today's sales environment, it's essential tobe able to listen rather than talk!

Finally, a good salesperson who wants to increase his or her performance must be able to makethe best use of the tools and technologies at his or her disposal: first and foremost, CRM tools, but also the various means and media of communication (powerpoint presentations, remote exchange platforms such as Skype...) and above all, the inevitable social networks!

2- How can salespeople make the most of these new tools?

New means of communication, and in particular professional social networks (LinkedIn, for example), have profoundly changed the face of commercial investigation.

Firstly, they facilitate research on the 3 essential topics: the company, its news and its COMEX. But above all, they provide access to valuable information that was previously difficult to access: your contacts' networks are now publicly displayed, so you can systematically check the connections between your respective networks!

It's vital that sales reps activate this contact and recommendation lever, which can have a decisive impact!

Discover the KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

all topics related to sales performance with our experts:

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, General Manager

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

3- How to stand out from the crowd in a sales meeting?

As everyone knows, the first 20 seconds are crucial!

The aim of the sales meeting is first and foremost to get to know the person you're talking to, their personality and their "territory". It should also enable you to establish a relationship of trust and demonstrate your expertise.

A tall order, given the extent to which buyers are over-solicited and under-available: the challenge is to quickly convince them of the benefits of this exchange for them.

First and foremost, you need to establish a climate of trust. To do this, analyze your interviewer's non-verbal language (gaze, posture, voice rhythm...) to synchronize yourself with him/her and gradually take the reins of the interview.

Next, it's the effectiveness of your pitch (about your company, then about your own role/experience) that will be decisive! It will have to give legitimacy to the appointment for your contact, and immediately dispel his main apprehension: is this salesman going to waste my time?

Beyond the key moment of the opening, what will really make the difference during the interview is your ability to focus on your customer's objectives, not your own! Today, there are a huge number of tools that enable a customer to find out what a supplier is doing, without having to see the sales rep!

We know that 70% of buyers now do most of their research on the Internet before contacting a potential supplier.

The salesperson's role is no longer to present his or her company's offerings, but to provide advice and expertise in order to work with the customer to build the solution that will solve his or her problem or meet his or her objectives.

This requires a considerable mental effort on the part of the salesperson: toforget about closing and the desire to "land an order". To do this, you have to stop classifying the information transmitted by the customer into "favorable" and "unfavorable" signals.

Your sole objective should be to understand the customer's territory and reality, and to build a quality relationship. This is a sine qua non condition for initiating a co-construction process with the customer.

4- What does this co-construction approach entail and what does it mean for the salesperson?

The interview must evolve in an interactive mode towards the realization of the customer's objectives or problem resolutions (a bit like a coaching session!).

Gradually, your contact must become involved, and therefore make an effort (providing information, putting you in touch with a key contact within the company...) that will commit him/her to working with you.

That's why the best salespeople don't look for the right order, they focus on the next step to help the customer achieve his or her goals.

The level of effort the customer puts into this process is the best indicator of their level of commitment to you.

You shouldn't leave your contact without first drawing up a shared action plan. This action plan will be the subject of a report from you, the completion of which will give rise to the organization of a new exchange (for feedback), ideally in the presence of other key contacts on this account.

What happens next depends on the quality of your follow-up process, which can sometimes take up to several months...

The advent of new technologies has enabled business to evolve in many areas, not least in communication and prospecting. To optimize your business, it's essential to integrate these new prospecting methods into your strategy. Find out how with this webinar:

But where to start? What actions should you take, and what objectives should you set? Discover here (in macro vision) the five key steps that will enable you to design and deploy an effective action plan to improve the multi-channel customer journey.

1. Define the perimeter

To begin with, no improvement plan can be drawn up without first taking stock of the current situation!
To improve the quality of the experience delivered to your customers, you first need to measure the current level of quality and define the expected target level.

The first task is to define the scope of the project, i.e. :

- target customer segments,
- which stages of the multi-channel customer journey you wish to prioritize,
- the channels involved.

2. Formalize the route

Once you've gathered all this information, formalize the different customer paths (one for each segment) with all their stages and contact points. You need to identify the key stages and be able to visualize each of them immediately and clearly:

- customer actions, and the channel used for each of them
- different levels of customer needs (explicit and implicit)
- the choices faced by customers and their selection criteria

To find out all you need to know about defining your customer paths, (re)read our article : Defining and optimizing your customer journey.

3. Define the Optimal Optimal

For each stage of the customer journey, the possible actions for the customer and the level of response provided
by the brand must then be detailed in great detail and evaluated according to a scoring system.

You will then create :

- your Optimal Experience repository, which describes all the actions that can be taken to best meet customer needs,
- an observation guide to observe and rate the quality of the Customer Experience

4. Measure the quality of the Experience delivered

The quality of the customer experience can be measured using a variety of observation, analysis and scoring methods. For more details on this topic, we refer you to the article: Do you know how to measure the Customer Experience delivered by your brand?

Depending on the context, the resources available, the customer segments studied and the channels analyzed, some or all of these different methods may be used: in-store observation of the customer journey by store teams, mystery visits, analysis of visit statistics and website navigation, analysis of verbatims and customer opinions on the Internet (social networks, forums, etc.) or eyetracking, etc.

In all cases, the various studies carried out will finally be consolidated and analyzed to extract the average scores awarded to each stage of the journey.

We can then model the brand's typical customer journey, and determine for each stage whether the customer's experience corresponds to :

- A disappointing moment
- A neutral moment
- A moment of enchantment

The key moments identified when defining the customer journey will be studied with particular attention.
The average scores thus established make it possible to identify the gap that exists between the typical customer experience offered by the brand, and the target customer experience it has set itself.

5. Prioritize key moments!

Finally, the gaps identified make it possible to target priority areas for improvement. For each of these, recommendations must be made and an action plan drawn up.
Teams, mobilized as early as the customer journey definition phase, then during the observation phase, can and should also be called upon to build action plans in "workshop" mode.

Deploying and implementing the action plan across the different stages of the customer journey, for each
customer segment and on each channel, requires the full involvement of the various teams at every stage of the project. Prior awareness of the importance of the issues at stake and the positive impact of these actions is therefore of crucial importance.

Discover all the levers for improving sales performance: How to activate sales performance levers

And to find out more, download our White Paper on Customer Experience :

(If you haven't already, we invite you to rediscover the reasons why customer experience is a strategic topic and how customer delight affects your profitability !) You probably even already have an idea of the target customer experience you're aiming for, a vision and an ambition for it... But do you know where to start to achieve it? The starting point is invariably to define and optimize your customer journey. Here's a look at the fundamentals of customer journey design and evaluation, the prerequisite for any customer experience improvement project.

1. By the way, what is the Customer Journey?

The customer journey is all the stages and points of interaction between a customer and a company, from the start of the purchasing process through to complete consumption of the product.

To simplify, there are 3 main phases in this process:

BEFORE: all preliminary stages, from active or passive awareness of the offer through to the purchasing process, including the purchasing decision phase

DURING: the "delivery" process, integrating all the stages involved in making the service or product available and consuming or using it.

AFTER: After-sales processes, including customer service, measuring customer satisfaction, and the entire relational process for maintaining contact and building customer loyalty.

The challenge is to smooth the loop from AFTER to BEFORE.

In this sense, and even if they partially overlap, the customer journey differs from the customer lifecycle. The lifecycle is a much more macroscopic observation of the successive passage from prospect to active customer to lost customer. It may therefore contain several iterations of the customer journey, or even several journeys, depending on the change in the customer's state.

2. What is the purpose of customer journey modeling?

When it comes to improving the customer experience, modeling the customer journey is the first necessary step.

This makes it possible to :

- identify all stages of the customer journey and all points of contact between the customer and the company,
- determine the importance of each contact point in the customer experience,
- assess the company's level of response at these contact points,
- define and implement the improvements needed to meet the company's ambitious response levels.

While this approach was first deployed for companies in the BtoC sector, it is increasingly being replicated and adapted to companies in the BtoB sector.

3. Define the customer journey

There isn't just one customer path. Depending on its customer typology, a company can offer different customer paths: this is the case, for example, for companies with an intermediary clientele comprising distributors, specifiers, installers and end consumers, or for those who want to offer a very different path to their best customers.

A touchpoint is defined as an interaction between the customer and the company, via a specific physical or digital channel. The interaction can be informative or transactional, and triggered either by the company (push) or by the customer (pull).

For example, reading an advertisement online or in a magazine, receiving a promotional email, visiting the company's website, entering a store, calling customer service, receiving a parcel, receiving an order confirmation email, receiving an invoice, and so on.

The customer journey stage is not systematically linked to a point of contact. It can be experienced in the customer's journey without direct interaction with the company. For example, a recommendation by a third party on a social network, a trip and a mode of transport to the company.

4. Evaluate the level of importance of the stage of the journey

Not all stages of the customer experience are created equal. It's often said that the first and last points of contact in the customer journey are the ones that most shape the customer's feelings, whether positive or negative. There are also other stages, often the most delicate, which together with the first and last impressions left represent the key stages.

We call these "moments of truth" key stages which, depending on how the company handles them, can turn a customer into a loyal customer... or a lost one.

The challenge is to meet and exceed expectations at a critical moment for the customer.

A few examples: the receipt of a parcel or the return procedure for an e-commerce company, the presentation of the invoice for a garage, the welcome on arrival for a hotel, the availability of the product for a store, the presentation of a proposal for a service company, the accessibility of customer service for a transport company, etc.

Satisfactory coverage of customer expectations at these stages is an anchor for loyalty. Failure to cover them encourages customers to leave.

5. Evaluate the level of response to customer expectations

It's important to assess the level of satisfaction delivered, taking into account the expectations and needs of different types of customer. Because not all customers are the same, it is necessary to detect and create customer segments according to their expectations, and in some sectors even to personalize the customer journey.

A family doesn't have the same needs as a couple in a ski resort, a DIY enthusiast doesn't have the same expectations as a professional in a tool shop, an SME doesn't have the same expectations in its car fleet management with a rental company.

It is also essential to consider the multi-channel dimension of the customer journey, respecting the customer's choice of preferred channel(s), and the "omnichannel" dimension of the customer journey, enabling customers to pursue their customer experience seamlessly, across all relationship channels and with all the company's contacts.

At all stages of the customer journey, and particularly at the moments of truth, we help companies measure their level of response to customer expectations, so as to define effective and relevant actions to be implemented to improve the customer experience and generate delight.

The WelcomeExperience® method proposed by KESTIO makes it possible to

- define multi-channel customer paths
- assess the criticality of interaction points
- assess the level of satisfaction delivered

to develop an effective plan for improving the customer experience.