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An 'unmissable' event in the life of many companies that comes around every year, and to which they often devote significant resources in order to make it a memorable and 'successful' occasion (with the help of charming hotels, exceptional destinations, and original and fun team-building activities). This deployment of resources makes sense in light of the challenge underlying this event: to sustainably engage teams in the dynamic of achieving the company's commercial objectives. But it is far from being a guarantee of success!

Depuis 10 ans, KESTIO intervient régulièrement en Ingénierie de séminaire commercial. Nous vous livrons ici 5 clés essentielles à la réussite de vos séminaires commerciaux, issues de cette longue expérience.

1) The objective of the seminar is more important than the "wow!" effect.

Let's be clear. For a company, the more resources allocated to the sales seminar, the more likely it is to find a venue that will please the participants, or an activity that will leave a lasting impression. This is what we call the « Waouh » effect: a positive emotional imprint, which can stay in people's minds and provide a strong experience for employees. But this positive marker should not be the only objective of a sales seminar. The “Waouh” effect is temporary. What will remain of the seminar in 1 month, 2 months or 3 months after the event?

You need to combine the "Wow" effect with a real strategy thought out in advance, and define what this seminar should leave behind.

If employees only remember the buffet and the beautiful decoration, but not the sales techniques taught, it's a failure. Therefore, we must stop prioritizing the form and also focus on the content. The objective of a sales seminar should be the primary concern of the management in charge of the event. The choice of location will come later.

2) Each seminar actually has a different objective

Last year's sales seminar was a great success. Good listening, good feedback, a venue appreciated by the participants. So, we don't change anything. Unfortunately, many companies have this reflex to put themselves on 'autopilot'. We replicate past success, we minimize risk-taking. Mistake. Each seminar is different. Of course, it can take place in the same location. But it necessarily has a different objective. Each time, therefore, we must ask ourselves the question of the real objective of this seminar.

What change do you want to instill in the company? What strong message do you want to convey? What new techniques do you want to pass on? What do you really want to achieve after the seminar?

Too busy repeating the success of last year's sales seminar, many companies do not anticipate the future and take time to change and evolve. This phenomenon was very clear in 2008 and 2009, especially in the heart of the crisis. Rather than reassuring sales teams, working on fears, self-confidence, and the future, many of them chose to hammer home a well-mastered institutional message... an exercise that is unfortunately in vain if the underlying expectation of employees is actually to be supported and listened to. The objective definition phase of a sales seminar should therefore not be brushed aside; on the contrary, it should concentrate all the reflection and is in fact the determining point.

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

3) A seminar must be precisely paced

Too many companies, in an effort to simplify, have fallen into the bad habit of organizing their sales meetings with a siloed structure. In other words: the morning is a conference in a plenary room with 80 slides on a giant screen, and the afternoon is go-karting! This sequencing between serious moments and relaxation moments should be avoided because it is counterproductive. It recreates unconscious mechanisms already experienced at school... There are moments in class to learn and be serious, and moments during recess that allow you to let off steam but are considered “unnecessary” with regard to the final objective.

It is possible to create interaction and fun while conveying serious messages. It is particularly recommended to organize co-construction sessions with the participants. If they are involved, they will apply the rest of the seminar with conviction.

There are always "off" evenings or times for distraction, which allow you to let go and are obviously not to be banned, but be careful of an overly rigid organization that will make the serious periods difficult to follow in a top-down mode with participants thinking "I can't wait for tonight..."! Fun yes, but with a goal! Karting, paintball or laser tag, why not, but with an objective, to serve a purpose. Make sure the message conveyed is consistent with the theme of the seminar, ask yourself what symbolic or practical connections can be made.

4) A good seminar should integrate digital technology

The digital revolution must be integrated into sales seminars to make them even more enjoyable, productive, and sustainable. Start from the principle that if a material is produced, it will only have value if it is digitized. Ideas thrown on a paperboard, discussions in the room, everything can be digitized today with simple co-creation and sharing tools. We must not let this creativity and these exchanges go without a trace.

The seminar is a source of information and reflection. Digital helps to capture these elements.

Digital technology is also a tool that allows you to prepare a sales seminar in advance. In the same way as for quality training, it is possible to send materials before a meeting so that participants can familiarize themselves with them beforehand. On the day, they will already have a base of knowledge and will not be discovering the topic, which will improve information retention, the quality of participation, and the effectiveness of discussions. For information to be retained, it must be communicated 3 times. So, it's best to convey the key messages before the seminar, repeat them during, and recall them afterward.

5) Your sales seminar must be consistent

Beware of the lack of consistency between a seminar organized in a prestigious setting and budget cuts for several company services in the same month! It is not possible to give a speech focused on cost rationalization throughout the year only to "splurge" on a very high-end seminar. Consistency is key!

The seminar must be integrated into a continuous process and bring meaning to the company's strategy. It must also be integrated into the company's financial logic.

It is possible to alternate locations, activities, and vary the resources allocated depending on the health of the company, but also and especially depending on the objectives targeted by the sales seminar. An event can very well take place in a privatized castle, while for the second meeting of the year 6 months later, nothing prevents arranging the offices to experience them differently and bring more fun to them during an effective seminar.

Want to optimize your sales team's time? In this webinar, learn how to refine your targeting and use appropriate tools to double the number of sales appointments you get per month:

Depuis 10 ans, KESTIO accompagne des entreprises – de la PME au Grand Groupe – dans la préparation et l’animation de leurs séminaires commerciaux :

Seminar engineering: defining objectives and content, developing the program, assisting with choosing the venue and themes, suggesting activities, etc.
Creation of facilitation materials: defining key messages, designing original and effective presentations, creating participatory quizzes and "intelligent" games.
Facilitating all or part of the sales seminar: communicating strategic messages, leading workshops and participatory games, and providing sales training in challenge mode.

However, many things have changed in recent years – particularly due to digital technology – and a real shift in model is underway, which is significantly changing the commercial organization of companies. With a major impact: salespeople will have to switch to 'collaborative' mode!

1- The end of the unique sales representative-customer relationship

Quite a few things have changed in recent years that call into question traditional business models.

Firstly, technology has broken through, and buyers have regained the balance of power they were missing: total control over the buying process.

As we have already seen in several of our articles (The selling salesperson is dead, long live the advising salesperson and Are your sales strategies behind the times?), the core of the decision-making and purchasing process now bypasses the salesperson, occurring via the internet, social networks, and peer reviews.

Alongside this fundamental evolution in purchasing behavior, companies and their sales representatives are increasingly confronted with obstacles of various kinds:

– Customer volatility
– Lengthening sales cycles
– Decrease in average selling prices
– Difficulty contacting decision-makers due to interests and availability
– Increased acquisition cost compared to customer retention cost

Moreover, many products/services are now perceived as "commodities" under the influence of the multiplicity of suppliers: the best quality at the lowest cost has become the norm and therefore seems in the short term the only survival option, although intrinsically unsustainable in the medium/long term.

What is the impact of this shift on the organization and business models?

2- « Everyone is a Salesperson »

The first impact is that these upheavals mark the end of the unique commercial-client link.

To put it a bit simplistically, before the changes mentioned, the sales "go-to-market" strategy essentially consisted of asking "what size bait should we use?" to win customers and build loyalty.

Typically, we segmented clients by profile and type of sales contact: telemarketing for small clients, field sales for mid-market (SMEs) and key account managers for national and larger clients. This system made sense when the salesperson was the only point of contact with the supplier.

Today, as we have seen, a customer completes most (57%) of their purchasing journey without a salesperson. They only contact the salesperson two-thirds of the way through their journey, after having defined their need quietly from their office and in a much more objective way than with a salesperson who is necessarily both judge and jury.

In terms of sales organization, the approach of initiating the relationship when the salesperson captures the prospect's interest no longer corresponds to reality.

From now on, the relationship that a prospect or client has with a company is triggered well before (and sometimes even outside of) any contact with the salesperson.

The company's primary ambassadors are often discussion forums, comparison and review sites, the supplier's official website, and/or its official social media pages.

If the customer completes their entire purchasing journey online, the efficiency of your logistics service, the clarity of your order tracking, and the simplicity of your after-sales service procedures will do even more for customer loyalty than the relationships established by your sales representatives…!

Today, all employees of a company play an important role in the customer's perception of its brand! This means that they must all be "customer-centric" and that they must be aware of their role and their mission towards the customer.

However, what is always obvious to the salesperson (to "pamper" their customers) is not necessarily so for professions further removed from direct contact with the customer, such as logistics.

Hence the fundamental change represented by entering the era of « Everyone is a salesperson »: it implies a real evolution of the sales organization model to bring different professions to work closely together, primarily: marketing, sales, and customer service.

3- Towards a new sales organization model.

As a result of these changes, companies are shifting from traditional customer profile/salesperson type segmentation to a sales organization built around the customer journey and its successive stages across different channels.

Now that the sales representative has lost their role as the sole point of entry for the prospect/client, the other functions will have to assume a determining role: namely, collecting customer data and generating their "engagement" before passing the baton to the sales representatives responsible for sealing the deal.

The traditional approach is vertical, siloed, and sequential: emailing from marketing, follow-up from an outsourced sales force, meetings conducted by salespeople, and analysis of the campaign's conversion rate by marketing and sales.

The new commercial approach, transverse and integrated, requires a distribution of tasks throughout the customer journey: a visit to the supplier's website leads to a proposal for content in exchange for obtaining the email, which may generate registration for a newsletter, the proposal of a technical webinar, a visit from a sales representative, the sharing of a white paper, the invitation to a customer event, and perhaps, in fine a meeting with the sales representative.

The marketing approach has transformed to evolve towards Inbound Marketing, and this means that the allocation of commercial resources has changed: a large part of the decision and purchase cycle is processed through a marketing response and no longer a commercial response.

However, in the current revolution, marketing has taken the lead over sales, hence a significant source of performance that needs to be exploited: using the leads transmitted and the information collected at the right time and constructively to progressively refine the sales tactics and therefore the conversion rates.

4- Collaboration: The Core of Digital Transformation

Furthermore, new business and marketing models must now address the following challenges, and the internal organization must adapt in terms of skills and resources:

Making the act of purchasing simple and easy:

Information and processes must be available anytime, anywhere, and in any mode. Of course, as B2C companies have long understood, all channels must be connected, and the experience must be seamless from one moment of the buying experience to the next.

From the very beginning of the purchasing process, interactions should allow the buyer to precisely define their needs so that the supplier can provide the most personalized response possible and accurately meet their expectations.

Deliver value to the customer in a different way

Today, virtual tools (online video, 3D animation, augmented reality, etc.) are gradually replacing the salesperson's arguments or face-to-face demonstrations.

Due to the level of autonomy buyers have in understanding products, BtoB sales representatives must provide "Consulting" support in the reflection and construction of the client's project.

Better understand customers through a collaborative approach

The involvement of non-sales teams (customer service, after-sales service, technical teams in charge of deploying the solution, etc.) and the sharing of information via a 360° CRM tool around customers will allow you to collect rich data on the customer's journey.

Reconciling marketing, sales, and customer service is therefore a key challenge for BtoB company performance.

This reconciliation involves a better definition of each person's contribution to the customer journey and increased information sharing from lead detection to after-sales service.

And how do you perceive these changes in your business? Have you modified your internal organization and the distribution of sales efforts?

Lise Ferret, HR Manager, and Benoît Malraison, Deputy Director of Employment, share their feedback on the sales training program implemented with our consultants.

1- What was the trigger for your sales and management training project?

Lise Ferret:

From an HR perspective, we have a sales force with a predominantly senior profile, and most are very experienced, with the risk of functioning partly on habits after a while. They regularly benefit from internal training, but we wanted to go further, push them to get out of their 'comfort zone' and discover that they still had challenges to overcome in their professional practices.

In parallel, in 2015, the Employment Department initiated a process of internal reorganization of its sales force. This resulted in particular in a new distribution of client portfolios: we moved from a distribution of clients by sector of activity to a distribution by portfolio size. It appeared necessary to support the teams towards this new organization and in the change of posture that it implied.

Benoît Malraison:

Until recently, we were living off a form of unearned advantage... Today, in a mature market where competitors are more numerous and customers are much less demanding, we are much more involved in a 'real act of selling'.

We now have purely "hunting" sales teams entirely dedicated to acquiring new customers. These teams are mainly composed of newly recruited people who do not yet master all the internal references. The objective was to reactivate the most advanced sales techniques to enable them to perform quickly.

They coexist with sales teams rather dedicated to monitoring our historical client accounts. The other objective was therefore to provide a common reference for our different teams and to bring methodology to our entire sales force.

2- How was the link made between this reorganization of the sales force and the training program implemented?

Lisa Ferret: The objective of the new organization was to avoid spreading efforts too thin and to achieve a more effective sales organization.

This implied a shift in sales approach for our teams: our job is to support our clients in finding the best solution to address their specific recruitment challenges, based on their market and objectives, not to sell them our offers!

We wanted to develop this advisory role in our sales representatives: how to bring value to our customers and promote our expertise.

Benoît Malraison: The training program implemented and the reorganization took place simultaneously, but one could have taken place without the other and vice versa.

The fact that we have directed our sales teams towards specialization is not directly connected to this training approach, which has always existed within our company and aims to ensure a high level for all our teams in terms of sales methodology.

But since we took the opportunity to particularly emphasize prospecting, this naturally led us to further emphasize the sales techniques necessary to perform, and in particular mastering the structure of a sales meeting.

3- How did the collaboration unfold?

Lisa Ferret: In practice, the training sessions took place throughout 2015. In total, they involved 80 people: sales representatives, managers, and sales directors.

The proposed system primarily involved sales managers and a number of Key Account sales representatives: the goal for them was to enhance their expertise in complex sales through the Chessboard Method©.

The entire sales force was then trained on the fundamentals of value-based selling, and the managers were trained in field coaching.

The involvement of managers was a major element. They are the ones who then coach the sales representatives in their daily practice: it was important that they shared the same language, to guarantee the scope and impact of this training afterwards.

The teams bought in naturally. The method has brought them to a higher level of mastery in their profession. It's motivating for them!

Benoît Malraison: It is a bit early to give the figures: we have planned a debriefing and follow-up time soon, to define how we will capitalize on the actions already taken and continue to develop the skills of our sales force in 2016.

The next step is to provide tailored individual follow-up to the training beneficiaries, differentiated according to their level of appropriation of the method: some sales representatives are in the process of acquiring the method and others have already fully appropriated it.

4- How do you measure the contribution of the system implemented with KESTIO?

Lisa Ferret: The training deployment was accompanied by the implementation of a framework for evaluating prospect and client interviews conducted by our sales representatives.

This evaluation grid is a concrete and highly effective element for practical application, a true daily monitoring tool that links to the method and promotes its immediate implementation.

This training provided multiple benefits: beyond improving the skills of salespeople and managers, this training represents a real element of cohesion within the teams: both senior and junior members share a common language and challenge each other.

Benoît Malraison: I measure the impact of this system by regularly supporting the team members in the field, and of course by the statistical study of their results.

I also make extensive use of the evaluation grid that we developed with your consultants, which is truly our reference tool. I use it systematically, and its adoption by all Sales Directors is a real issue, both in terms of monitoring/management and coaching of sales representatives.

We can already observe that the teams dedicated to acquisition are performing and achieving the objectives that we had set internally: since these are mainly the most recently recruited employees, we can attribute a good part of these performances to the contribution of the method.

At this stage, we can already see that it has paid off for the sales representatives who have assimilated the method most completely and quickly!

The Chessboard Method© – a method for significantly improving the volume of business and conversion rates in complex sales – is exclusive to KESTIO.

To learn more, request a FREE consultation with one of our consultants.

Thus, many French people report a more fluid relationship with brands than before, according to the 2015 AFRC Barometer of Customer Effort. However, French brands still seem unconvincing in terms of Customer Experience, as highlighted by the latest Customer Experience Index published by Forrester... Explanation of this apparent paradox.

1- Simplifying the customer journey, a first step in the right direction

"For 60% of French people, the Customer journey in France has become simpler, for the first time in three years" indicates the AFRC study conducted by Médiamétrie.

Truly good news that rewards the efforts of many companies committed to the continuous improvement of customer relations!

According to respondents, 69% of customer journeys did not require any particular effort. A clear improvement compared to the figures from 2014: at the time, only 60% of French people felt that brands made their lives easier. 9 points gained in one year is a significant progression to be delighted about!

However, this figure masks large disparities between sectors and depending on the stage of the evaluated journey. No sector stands out as the "big winner" of this trend towards improvement, but several of them benefit, particularly on specific points such as:

- the use of loyalty cards for hypermarkets and supermarkets
- Online purchasing in e-commerce,
- The activation of a bank account
- or even signing a new energy contract (electricity or gas).

It is noted that while the steps related to subscription or purchase have received a great deal of attention from companies in order to reduce customer effort, the same cannot be said for cancellation! The latter remains one of the most difficult moments in the journey for 41% of customers, especially in the insurance sector!

2- Multichannel Experience as an Enabler, Not a Replacement for Physical Stores

If customer journeys seem simplified today for many French people, it is mainly due to the facilitation provided by multi-channel approaches. In 2014, the rise of omnichannel was noted by the AFRC and became part of everyday life, but it raised concerns: the disappearance of physical and local commerce, and the complication of purchasing paths due to poor management of the different channels by companies (lack of coherence between them).

Today, these concerns seem to have largely disappeared, and consumers are demanding more. According to Eric Dadian, President of AFRC, as stated in the Les Echos newspaper:

" The freedom of choice has multiplied. The range of possibilities helps the consumer find the most suitable paths for them. The barometer also reveals that a portion of them would be willing to pay more for better quality customer service ».

Consumers have more choices thanks to the different channels, and still appreciate physical stores. Certainly, the web channel is cited first at 59% in the search for information, but visiting a point of sale (18%) is nevertheless increasing. This return to the store is palpable in certain sectors, particularly in telephony. French people prefer direct and personalized exchange when it comes to renewing their mobiles.

3- Yet, the Customer Experience is still far from satisfactory!

Can we say that all is well in the best of all possible worlds? That customer journeys are finally perfectly aligned with consumer expectations thanks to multi-channel approaches, and that their experience is significantly improved as a result?

The latest Customer Experience Index published by Forrester suggests otherwise! This annual barometer ranks 203 European brands from eight sectors based on the quality of their customer experience and consumer loyalty.

In France, the winners do not get away with honors, since 55% of brands are classified as "mediocre" and not a single one of them delivers a superior level experience: MAIF, Yves Rocher and Crédit Mutuel Assurance, the three French brands that emerge as the best ranked in the index, are rewarded with a simple "acceptable". Mediocre results shared by other European countries such as the United Kingdom or Germany.

A disappointing observation, especially when you consider that 3/4 of French business leaders say that improving customer experience is at the top of their strategic priorities!

4- Why this seemingly paradoxical result?

The Forrester study indicates that the most important driver of customer experience quality is the emotional factor. Taking into account this "emotional" aspect in interactions and relationships with customers is what differentiates the notion of customer experience from that of customer satisfaction, for example (as a reminder on this subject, you can reread our article Are you sure you have mastered the 3 key approaches to building customer loyalty?).

It seems that this is where our companies are struggling, as they have primarily focused on the "efficiency" lever in their approach to improving the customer journey. Emotion is certainly a concept that they have more difficulty grasping: it is by definition less "rational" and therefore seems difficult to control and measure.

Yet, it is its systematic and lasting consideration that produces the most tangible effects and the most significant in terms of customer loyalty! Some sectors have realized this for a long time and are doing much better: this is particularly the case in the insurance and mutual insurance sector, from which 7 of the 13 best-rated brands in the Forrester index come!

While a significant step seems to have been taken in simplifying customer journeys, there is still work to be done in improving the customer experience. A challenge that requires careful consideration of the issue of customer listening and understanding: in the United States, a study published by IBM in the first quarter of 2015 indicated that 81% of surveyed companies believe they have a complete view of their customers, but that only 37% of them say that the company really understands them... The gap is therefore very real, even if the difference is narrowing.

KESTIO supports numerous companies (from mid-sized to large corporations) on these topics:

Prior reminder: Inbound Marketing consists of attracting leads and nurturing their interest and reflection throughout their decision-making process, in order to convert them into qualified leads, prospects and then customers, or even, ideally, into convinced ambassadors of your brand and your offers!

It relies on the observed change in buyers' attitudes, who now carry out most of their purchasing process independently, relying in particular on the tools offered by digital technology (websites, forums, social networks, etc.) to develop their selection criteria and make their purchasing decision.

It naturally opposes Outbound Marketing, which relies on more 'push' strategies (particularly mass advertising and emailing) that have now lost their effectiveness.

The funnel logic of Inbound Marketing and the steps towards conversion can be summarized as follows:

The evening's program covered the 3 main stages of the Inbound approach:

1- Attract:

It involves attracting a relevant audience to your website – consisting of potential prospects – by offering them content that appeals to them and interests them, in line with your expertise. Several ingredients contribute to this:

- Storytelling (Nathalie Grynbaum, IDRAC): Producing content (distributable on the web) in an Inbound logic means above all knowing how to "tell a relevant story" that will attract and convince your audience. It is certainly a question of demonstrating your expertise, but above all of responding in a concrete and useful way to the concerns and questions of your prospects, by providing them with elements that will allow them at a minimum to fuel their thinking, and even sometimes to do part of the work themselves. You will then be identified as a reference expert partner, to whom they will naturally turn when they need it.
- S.E.O. – Search Engine Optimization (Eric Guillermain, IDRAC): Distributing rich and relevant content online to your targets also implies working on the visibility of your site: the production of this content is often a long-term job, so it has real value, in your eyes as well as for your targets... It would be a shame if they did not meet their audience! This implies generating traffic on your site, and preferably qualified traffic. One of the levers to achieve this is the S.E.O. (or "natural" referencing) optimization of your website and your digital content: this involves facilitating the identification of your pages and their content for search engines, by working on meta-tags, titles and descriptions, page URLs, image titles, lexical fields of texts, etc., according to their reading criteria. This optimization work is based on the study and analysis of the keywords used by your prospects during their online searches.

2- Engage

Being able to produce interesting content (for your target) that is representative of your expertise allows you to attract strangers and turn them into visitors to your website. Once this first objective is achieved, however, the most important thing remains to be done to really achieve your goal: ultimately, it is still always a question of selling your product or service offers! To do this, you need to work on the engagement of this audience.

- Engagement and social networks (Fabian Innocenti, PUBLIC ACTIF): This crucial step involves encouraging your visitors to deepen their relationship with you. To achieve this, you need to provoke interactions with your prospects that will lead them to invest (time, energy... and especially, emotion!) in a process that connects them to your brand. One of the most effective current vectors in this area is social media engagement: community engagement through the dissemination of viral images, gaming, direct online access to services and products, the ability to personalize or even co-design products... All of this plays a key role in engagement. It allows you to both expand your audience, get to know them better, and above all, truly "meet" their interests, expectations, and buying behaviors.

3- Transform.

If you already have a qualified audience engaged in a relationship with you, you have come a long way. However, your entire audience represents a mass of contacts too large to be handled effectively by your sales representatives. Moreover, not all visitors to your site or your social media pages are necessarily in the decision-making phase! It's up to you to bring them there, then, or to identify those who are already at a level of maturity that is "exploitable" for your sales force.

- Lead nurturing and lead scoring (Olivier Prost, KESTIO): The goal of this patient work and its culmination is to generate qualified and mature leads that can be passed on to the sales teams! This involves a "nurturing" process that consists of "feeding" your visitors' thinking and leading them to mature their purchasing project (for example, by offering them white papers, providing them with benchmarks, or inviting them to benefit from a free trial, etc.). The design and provision of this rich content is the subject of work closely involving the Marketing and Sales Department, in order to align and coordinate the objectives and the tempo of the operations. The interactions offered to prospects and their reactions make it possible to establish a "scoring" system aimed at identifying "mature" and interesting prospects. The score is established according to criteria such as the characteristics of the prospect (scale, sector, etc.) and their level of progress in the pre-purchase process (general information gathering, definition of selection criteria, etc.). At the end of the process, only leads that have reached the necessary score are passed on to the sales representatives, in order to effectively feed their pipeline and maximize their chances of success (optimization of conversion rates and the allocation of sales effort).

This conference demonstrated the effectiveness of this new marketing approach and the necessity of mastering all its facets for effective implementation. It resonated well with participants, including entrepreneurs, managers, marketing and sales professionals, and students.

And where are you in the process? How are you approaching the implementation of Inbound Marketing in your company?

To stay competitive and maximize your chances of converting leads into future customers, it is important to optimize the performance of your commercial assets. Find out how by watching this webinar:

Generating and leveraging qualified inbound leads is our expertise. For 10 years, KESTIO has been supporting companies (from SMEs to large corporations) in acquiring and retaining their customers.

According to a study carried out by IKO system in 2012, 59% of sales representatives' working time is not directly devoted to sales! A scathing observation that reveals the weight of numerous time-consuming ancillary tasks: internal meetings, administrative tasks, transport...

Restoring sales to its rightful place in the activities of sales representatives is, therefore, a major challenge for Sales Directors and a necessity for the company to develop its profits and optimize the use of its resources.

So how do you turn this seemingly unfavorable situation into an opportunity? For example, by exploiting the optimization opportunities available through your CRM!

These figures, extracted from the very interesting study conducted by IKO system [1], "Sales Action: 66 statistics and infographics", reveal the unproductive or excessively time-consuming tasks that plague the lives of sales representatives:

Is the time sales representatives lose on tasks outside their core responsibilities unavoidable? Fortunately, no!

Here are 4 ways a CRM can help you:

To improve the productivity of your sales teams (and therefore their results)
To save your sales representatives from a nervous breakdown!

1. Optimize unproductive time

An obvious first area of focus is optimizing all unproductive time!

This involves, for example, working in a taxi, on the subway, while waiting for a plane or train, and therefore treating all this unproductive time as opportunities.

To do this, some CRM solutions offer 2 possibilities:

- the mobile applications
- the ability to work offline

ZohoCRM, Sugar CRM, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics, for example, provide mobile applications that are enhanced based on settings and customizations.

Offline versions of CRM solutions, on the other hand, are generally based on strong integration with Outlook.

These are all opportunities for your sales representatives to capture their activities, the verbatim from their interviews, or to configure their follow-up and reminder tasks during previously unproductive moments.

2. Enrich customer / lead data.

All CRM solutions facilitate the enrichment of customer data in different ways:

- by standardizing this data (for example, defining and standardizing the address format) to facilitate its use (generating reports, configuring marketing campaigns, etc.)
- by verifying their consistency through control functions that check the existence of addresses or phone numbers.

Two major innovations are pushing this logic further for BtB and BtC:

The first is the complete integration of data from specialized external databases. This can be achieved through dedicated interfaces (such as Zebaz, which works with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Yellowbox, Easiware, Marketo, Eloqua, or Digatelo) or by providing specific modules. For example, Data.com or Amabis have created a CRM solution based on their business directories (data is their primary focus), but these companies have recognized the importance of offering a technical solution to leverage this data directly. We can also mention the 2I solution from B&C Technology, which offers an enriched single customer view.

In both cases, the interface allows for automatic and simplified data import, which is directly linked to existing accounts in the database (no duplicate creation, thanks to a similarity search system, with equivalence rate). Information updates are automatic and in real time.

This allows you to update administrative data (address, SIRET, etc.) and qualitative data (activity, turnover, workforce, etc.), but also to enrich contacts: roles, organization charts, etc., with rich data with high added value for sales representatives!

The second is the integration of professional or personal social networks directly into the contact record in the CRM. This allows you to centrally monitor contact updates within the tool without getting distracted and improves the relevance of your interactions (by tracking the person's and their company's news, understanding their interests, and identifying their network for potential introductions and recommendations).

IKO System offers intelligent alerts about your prospective contacts, clients, or competitors to increase the responsiveness of sales teams.

3- Qualify and score leads.

In addition to the integration solutions already mentioned with external databases, which facilitate lead research and the import of rich data into the CRM, the major innovation of recent years has been the explosion of Marketing automation modules.

These modules, which vary in functional richness (and cost), enable the implementation of nurturing strategies. This involves offering personalized content (messages, offers) and promoting interactions with identified leads (based on Inbound Marketing scenarios) through various channels.

This process enriches the database with actionable behavioral data and allows for both:

- to nurture a prospect's interest in your company/offers
- to develop and deepen the relationship with them over time
- to identify their interests and habits (behavioral data)
- to support them in developing their project and towards making a purchasing decision
- to establish lead scoring based on different interactions to identify hot prospects and deliver them to sales representatives at the right time.

This marketing channel ultimately feeds the leads available to sales representatives, providing them with a database of qualified contacts with a history of interactions. The list of solutions is extensive and the offerings are varied: Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, Exact Target, Silver Pop, InfusionSoft, Koban, Act-On, SalesFusion, Click Dimension, etc.

4- Share knowledge and work collaboratively

As is often the case, this innovation comes from Salesforce, an innovation that has been adopted, supplemented and adapted by the majority of CRM solutions on the market.

Consider each entity as a Facebook page: an account, a contact, an opportunity, etc. What may seem anecdotal at first glance mainly allows you to store unstructured data on accounts and contacts instead of sharing it by email, thus avoiding loss of information and allowing a newcomer to integrate customer knowledge beyond the figures.

Unstructured data includes: interview transcripts, organizational charts, data related to the client's market and its offers (in a BtoB context)... That is, data that does not fit into standardized "dedicated fields" and cannot be automatically imported.

By allowing them to be stored and displayed on the page dedicated to the account or contact, the CRM meets several needs:

- Keep track of this information and archive this knowledge, which falls under Business Intelligence and adds significant value to the sales process.
- Share it, so that different actors can contribute to feeding and enriching it (a member of the customer service or a project manager can glean key information on the client's decision-makers or projects during his exchanges with him, which will have an important value in the eyes of the sales representative)
- To "historize": link the rich information thus obtained to the history of interactions between the company and the client, and thus allow any interlocutor taking over the file to quickly become aware of this information and take into account the client's history.

The ability to subscribe to « feeds » to follow the « news feed » of a contact or account can allow the manager to manage the activity of his sales representatives, the sales representative to follow the news of his client... or several members of a team to work together (sales representatives working together on the same account, sales + marketing + customer service teams).

This also avoids a dramatic pitfall often encountered in teams when a CRM is not used: the pure and simple loss of information, or its control by a single person (who may leave the company).

CRM is therefore a real goldmine for optimizing sales force and developing a more collaborative approach within your company... Provided that you choose it well and that it is actually used! Two essential elements on which we support clients of all sizes from many sectors on a daily basis, such as:

- the healthcare sector: BIOMNIS
- The leisure and event sector: STADE DE FRANCE
- Industry: GPN (Groupe Total), GEMALTO
- the service sector: GL Events, APICIL

And how do your teams use CRM tools? What benefits have you observed, and what difficulties have you encountered in implementing such a tool?

To learn more about CRM solutions and help you with your projects, find all of our methods and tools here:

[1] http://go.iko-system.com/rs/ikosystemtrial2/images/eBook_statistiques_action_commerciale_2012.pdf

On this occasion, he was interviewed by KOBAN, the organizer of this evening. To give you a little preview of this evening, which promises to be very interesting, we are publishing this interview, which originally appeared on the KOBAN website.

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

Inbound marketing and the tools that go with it now provide a way for marketing and sales to work together. The fact that these 2 services are complementary seems obvious, and yet... the observation in companies is that they are still often poorly connected. For us, this is essential, it is one of the good practices to install to gain efficiency.

So, will it be about tracking and qualifying leads?

Yes, because when marketing identifies a lead, it is counterproductive to pass it on to sales immediately. There is still too much of a tendency to generate a volume of leads, rather than working on qualifying and profiling them. Lead scoring and lead nurturing methods help to provide the sales force with useful leads, and to focus commercial energy in the right place at the right time. In parallel, we will also discuss the role of organization and processes that should enable smooth communication between marketing and sales.

A few words about KESTIO and your expertise

KESTIO is a consulting and training company focused on improving Commercial Performance and Customer Experience. We have around twenty employees, based in Lyon and Paris. We support companies and their leaders through 4 main divisions:

–Sales Performance
–Customer Experience
–CRM tools in the broadest sense
–Company experience and digital transformation

Our approach is based on considering a company's customers as its main asset.

All the levers on which we help them act therefore allow them to optimize the acquisition and retention of their customers.

This evening will be an opportunity to provide concrete action steps to implement an Inbound Marketing strategy and work in that direction.

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

While this seems obvious to everyone when it comes to consumers, and therefore the BtoC sector, we more rarely mention the fact that this trend also affects buyers within companies, directly impacting the activity of companies operating in BtoB. Yet, this is what leads a Forrester study¹ to announce the upcoming death of the sales function in BtoB! (See our article on this subject The selling salesperson is dead. Long live the advising salesperson!)

Understanding the changes occurring among buyers is a matter of survival for these companies: Ignoring these changes or misinterpreting their meaning means taking the risk of (continuing to) offer commercial approaches that are ill-suited to the current reality and your clients' expectations... An unnecessary and dangerous risk!

Do you have the right sales approach, or are you behind the curve when it comes to your buyers' practices for boosting your sales performance? It's up to you to judge, after reading this article.

1- What has changed, and why

But what are these evolutions in the purchasing behavior of professionals and on what springs do they rest?

We can distinguish 4 main evolutions:

1.1. A change in audience and buyer generation:

According to studies such as the "Demand Gen Report" or the "B2B Path To Purchase Study 2014" by Google and Millward Brown Digital, Generation Y, born with the Internet, now occupies a leading position in the BtoB purchasing potential.

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

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

And make no mistake: despite their young age, these professionals now have real decision-making power. According to the same study, 81% of them are in charge of purchasing decisions related to their area of responsibility.

The profile of BtoB prospects has therefore changed considerably.

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

How does this evolution of your audience change things for you? Firstly, it changes how they access information about your offers.

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

Another important aspect of their behavior: they also eagerly seek expert and/or peer reviews before making any purchase. The « official » information disseminated by suppliers is therefore analyzed and weighed against customer testimonials and feedback.

B2B buyers, who previously favored face-to-face and telephone channels, now prefer the responsiveness and 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 'when they have decided what to buy'.

Thanks to the internet, each customer has autonomous access, from anywhere 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 downside for them (and for you): B2B buyers are now overwhelmed with content from various providers, partners, or analysts. Their search for relevant information, therefore, requires them to be very selective and quickly discard advertising content.

1.3. The growing importance of social networks

72% of B2B buyers gather information through social media before engaging in a purchasing process. Of these, only 22% then directly contact the supplier.²

Leaders and prospects show a clear preference for LinkedIn, a professional network, and blogs, which allow for a more informed opinion on a subject.

It's easy for a buyer to connect on discussion and support forums to gather best practices or standard specifications. These collaborative BtoB methods are booming, with advice and recommendations (from suppliers, among others) whose power is only increasing.

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

The social media giants have also oriented their advertising offers to target the BtoB sector. For example, Facebook is going all out to develop its own professional network "Facebook at work." Even if it is struggling to gain traction for the moment, it is already available on the Apple Store.

1.4. An increased perception of risk, a long and more complex decision-making process

Risk consideration is always a predominant factor in the purchasing decision. The tense economic context and uncertainty about the future are all factors that lead buyers to be very attentive to costs and the value provided.

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

The perception of risk by buyers is increasing to such an extent that it results in increasingly long sales cycles and a multiplication of stakeholders who share responsibility for the decision and, consequently, the potential risks.

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

When customers enter their buying process, they expect salespeople to support their analysis and thinking in order to help them clarify their needs, determine the key factors for success, and challenge competing solutions to enable them to make the most relevant choice with regard to their issues and objectives.

2. How to Get on Board

Faced with these rapid and radical changes, suppliers must absolutely evolve their sales process!

Millennial buyers, the explosion in web usage, the rise of social networks, and the desire to control risks have permanently changed the game: B2B buyers are increasingly independent in their purchasing cycle and have developed new habits.

Of course, the diversity of products or services offered to professionals (from ink cartridges to airliners) does not allow for modeling a desirable evolution applicable to all.

However, we can differentiate between 2 main types of models:

2.1. Your company sells "everyday" consumer products.

In the case of 'commodity' products, such as ink cartridges, the added value is so low (which doesn't mean the product is of poor quality!) that online sales, without a sales representative, will become the norm. The key is primarily e-marketing, and it involves offering customers the benefits they associate with using the web channel:

- Time saving: immediate and real-time information on products, their availability, access to order history, ease of placing an order, etc.
- Reliable product information: Easy-to-access, clear, and complete information to compare products, prices, delivery times, or the possibility of receiving test samples.
- Order tracking: real-time order tracking, with direct sending of useful information at each stage of processing and additional features, such as SMS alerts for example.

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

For products or services with high added value, such as airliners or enterprise software, it is no longer a single salesperson who makes the sale, but an entire team, whose size and areas of intervention are expanding (marketing, digital, sales, pre-sales studies, development, customer relations, etc.).

The challenges include detecting qualified leads, supporting clients in analyzing their issues, determining the most suitable solution with the prospect's or client's entire sphere of influence and decision-making, and being able to provide them with maximum value throughout this pre-sales phase.

To meet these challenges, we support our clients on:

- The evolution of sales practices: sales management must be adapted to encourage salespeople to change their approach, in the prospecting phase, in conducting the various meetings, and in co-constructing the sales proposal with their clients.
- The implementation of monitoring of commercial coverage and intensity across the different customer segments, which leads to putting the number of appointments indicator into perspective.
- Recruiting salespeople based on new skills
- The evolution of management and steering tools (for example, CRM).
- Improving customer journeys and their consistency across different sales channels
- The development of effective cooperation between sales, marketing, customer relations, pricing, and other teams.

These are all facets of this transformation that can be complex to master.

The slow evolution of sales processes leads customers to eliminate certain market players from their choices who have not kept up with the times. Sales systems are not immune to the tsunami of "uberization"!

Only companies that rise to these challenges will remain at the forefront or conquer commercial effectiveness!

And you, how are you evolving your sales strategies to meet or anticipate these customer expectations and practices in terms of purchasing?

Discover a tool to test your sales effectiveness. You can find out the level of your sales dynamics for free with one click on the link below:

Sources:

1 Death of a (B2B) Salesman» from Forrester Research
2 Demand Gen Report
3 Key figures for 2014 distance selling E-commerce

Collecting customer data is no longer enough; you have to act on that data!

“Forrester predicts that 2016 will be a busy year for customer relations. It will be a year in which companies that make real efforts to improve customer relations will be rewarded, while those that have minimized their customers' needs for years will begin to decline,” says Forrester in its study « Top 10 Success Factors to Determine Who Wins And Who Fails in the Age of the Customer » (1)

According to this report, customers will reward companies that anticipate individual needs and use the data collected. Conversely, companies that constantly have to ask for basic information and are unable to "recognize" a customer will begin to lose them.

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

Customers will no longer tolerate companies that appear to forget 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 a real effort.

Upholding confidentiality and privacy as a differentiating value.

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

Consumers expect brands to use data before interacting! All your customers know that you collect data, and they will more readily accept the idea if it serves the experience they have with your brand.

To take action, data is necessary. However, be mindful of how you collect it. Data confidentiality and respect for privacy have become central issues. It's no longer sufficient to simply consider the 'legal' aspect, nor should data collection be seen as a risk. On the contrary, it's a real opportunity to stand out. It's important to educate and explain the purpose of the collected data and how it can personalize the offer.

Customer involvement will thus become a lever for improving the relationship! What does that mean? According to Forrester, brands that more strongly involve their customers – through their loyalty program, for example – will see the benefits.

Companies that launch customer-oriented operations will gain a real and lasting differentiation. Sticking to old habits is doomed to failure.

The customer must participate in defining the brand and designing its products and services: who is better placed than themselves to know their needs? This is what our client Castorama has understood very well: through questionnaires delivered via touch-screen kiosks placed in stores, some of its points of sale directly collect the opinions of their customers. This has allowed them in particular to adapt the hours of presence of their teams, to further improve customer reception and to develop new ideas based on reliable data obtained in real time.

Since the core of the customer relationship is based on personalizing and contextualizing the offer, it's important to strongly involve the consumer, ideally very, very early on. This is what our consultants contribute to, particularly when they implement an support program to improve customer experience.

And 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 familiar with KESTIO will recognize our values in these actions: #2 Act as an agent of change, #5 Promote the transmission of knowledge, and #7 Be passionate and proud of our consulting profession!). To introduce the activities of this international organization, we gave the floor to Maylis Portmann, Fellowship Manager at Ashoka.

Can you introduce Ashoka in a few words?

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

Founded 30 years ago by American Bill Drayton (formerly with McKinsey, having directed the American environmental agency, editor's note), the association is now present in 80 countries and supports 3,000 social entrepreneurs in carrying out their projects. These are innovative projects with a real social impact.

Currently, for example, we are supporting projects as diverse as:

- The development of digital tools and educational content to help autistic children develop their potential and offering appropriate support to those involved in their educational support (parents, teachers, specialized educators, etc.): the 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 a "Kit" tent: multimedia tools and library, a 100 m2 space assembled in flight cases holding 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 therapeutic tool for prevention in the service of Sustainable Health among vulnerable populations: elderly or disabled people, professions with strenuous physical demands, to promote their continued good health, autonomy and the prevention of chronic pathologies. Siel Bleu project led by Jean Michel Ricard.

Our mission: to identify and support innovative social entrepreneurs, promote meetings and collaboration between these social entrepreneurs, public institutions and the business world, and ultimately, help the next generations of change-makers emerge through an « education » component.

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

What is a social entrepreneur?

When we talk about a social entrepreneur, we understand the word 'entrepreneur' in the broadest sense, that is, regardless of the legal status of the company. We support projects with associative or foundation status as well as companies in the strict sense.

A social entrepreneur, as we understand it, is above all an innovator, whose idea is strong enough to change the game in their field. What matters most is the interest of the project, its innovative nature and its perceived impact, that is to say, its potential capacity to solve a societal problem on a large scale.

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

Ashoka's core mission is to identify these potentials, select them, and support them to truly accelerate their development and ensure the conditions for their widespread dissemination.

What is your role within Ashoka?

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

I organize the actions implemented with the 'Pro-bono¹' partners of which you are a part, that is to say 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 advance their projects.

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

During a recent weekend in Lyon, for example, the fellows worked with KESTIO on best practices for approaching a partner or client and presenting their project or solution. They also participated in workshops led by SIMPLON on design thinking, and a Lego Scrum session for a fun, team-based learning experience on project management and meeting client expectations.

How do you measure the impact of your actions with fellows in the field?

To measure the impact of our actions, we evaluate the results of the activity of the supported social entrepreneurs and their evolution over 5 years, then 10 years (impact studies Measuring Effectiveness).

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

Such a 'success rate' is no accident: 'fellow' status is obtained after a demanding selection process that lasts for 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, meaning they are duplicated (in other countries, for example), and 54% of them have an impact on the policy implemented in their country! This is proof that they provide an effective response to real, shared societal challenges.

Very concretely, when we support, for example, the C&A Foundation, which researches and identifies players in the textile value chain who implement environmentally and socially responsible production conditions, we actively contribute to advancing issues related to health, respect for human rights, social and economic development, and respect for the environment!

From a more qualitative perspective, the impact study conducted among fellows in France, Switzerland, and Belgium by MFR Consulting reveals what Ashoka represents for them: an 'accelerator' to maximize the potential of the activity and its creator; a community of peers and expert resources; and finally, a place of trust, support, and experience that allows them to avoid 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 profession by getting involved in initiatives of general interest free of charge.

Want to learn more about the organization's actions and projects : Take a look at Ashoka's website!

Want to go further and bring your values to life? Support Ashoka or Become a Pro-bono partner
Do you know any innovative social project leaders? Propose a Fellow