Archives des Stratégie

Before fully enjoying your vacation, we want to help you prepare for your return in the best possible way.

Discover our 6 essential keys to assess your summer activities, learn from them, and prepare for a successful return to work.

To end this last newsletter before the summer break on a high note, KESTIO has an exceptional offer for you. We offer you the opportunity to schedule a session with one of our Executive Committee members upon your return. This session will be specially designed to help you prepare for the resumption of activities and address the topic of your choice.

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to benefit from expert advice and start the next season with confidence.

KEY #1: Lay the foundation for your sales strategy

While it may seem obvious, a clear sales strategy for all sales teams is a prerequisite for controlling development and achieving objectives.

Many leaders still believe that recruiting a 'good salesperson' is the solution to achieving sales performance...

Unfortunately, it's not that easy, as other components come into play.

Are you sure you took them into account when establishing your sales strategy for the new business year?

- Objectives and monitoring indicators: Set clear performance goals and define associated measurement indicators to assess their achievement throughout the year. 📈

- Means and resources: Determine the resources needed to acquire and retain your customers, including sales channels, marketing activities, and lead flows. ✅

- Priority targets and allocation of efforts: Segment your customers and prospects based on their development potential, then allocate sales efforts in a way that is appropriate for each segment. 🎯

KEY #2 - Organize an impactful seminar

After a well-deserved vacation, the return to work is the perfect opportunity to bring your teams together and strengthen cohesion within your company. Seminars play a vital role in developing company culture and fostering a sense of belonging among employees.

To ensure the success of your back-to-work seminar:

Take the time to plan this event and create a memorable experience for all your employees.

KEY #3 – Optimize your sales productivity through automation

In a high-performing sales activity, some time-consuming tasks are essential but can be optimized through automation.

- Be present and generate conversations
  on social networks by using automation tools to optimize prospecting on LinkedIn, detect your targets and save time thanks to the automatic sending of messages.

- Take advantage of an essential prospecting tool
  to get contacts and their details by accessing millions of verified emails and phone numbers of your prospects.

- Use automated scheduling software
  to easily schedule appointments with your prospects and customers, by giving a third party access to your available time slots.

- Explore a leading prospecting automation tool
  that allows you to prospect by sending email sequences, find prospect contact information, automate contact initiations, and increase your appointments.

By discovering these automation tools, you will be able to save valuable time and significantly improve your commercial productivity.

KEY #4 - Optimize your copywriting to generate more leads

68% of online buyers appreciate reading content published by a company they are interested in.

By refining the copywriting of your content, you maximize the impact of your Inbound Marketing strategy. You will attract qualified leads and create lasting relationships with your prospects.

To effectively craft your copywriting and generate quality leads:

- Know your target audience: Understand their needs and adapt your tone and language accordingly.

- Use catchy titles: Spark interest with impactful titles.

- Use CTAs: Guide prospects towards conversion by using clear and compelling CTAs.

- Provide valuable content: Offer relevant information and showcase your expertise to build trust.

By putting these copywriting principles into practice, you will significantly improve your ability to generate quality leads and establish strong relationships with your prospects.

Key 5: Personalize your approach for relevant customer engagement

As a sales professional, you know it's essential to understand and communicate effectively with your customers. Each customer is unique, and to establish a solid relationship, it is crucial to adapt your approach to their profile.

To be truly customer-centric, adopt a sales approach oriented towards coaching.

Instead of focusing solely on collecting information and presenting products, initiate constructive questioning and envision the future with the client. Emphasize generating interest and creating value.

To do this, you can use the DISC model, a behavioral analysis tool that identifies four basic emotional styles. Each client has a unique combination of these styles, and by understanding their profile, you can personalize your approach to meet their specific needs. This will allow you to establish a better connection with your clients and optimize your sales interactions.

35%.

Amazon generates 35% of its revenue through upselling!*

Cross-selling and up-selling can thus represent a real growth lever for your company, even if you are not a web giant!

*Source: The Future of Commerce

Cross-selling and up-selling, what is it?

Cross-selling is a sales technique that consists of offering a customer to buy products or services that complement those they have already purchased or are in the process of purchasing.

Up-selling is a sales technique that consists of offering a customer to buy a higher-end product or service (and therefore more expensive) than the one they initially intended to buy.

Without even realizing it, you encounter these techniques every day! "And with this?" when you buy your baguette, "As a maxi best-of menu?" when you order your favorite hamburger...

However, cross-selling and up-selling are not only applicable to the B to C sector.
This sales strategy can be applied in B to B, regardless of the sector or size of your company.

Today, we will explain how to initiate this process within your organization.

KEY #1 - Information Gathering

After several exchanges with your client, you often think you know them. You even sometimes know their next vacation destination!
But in reality, your client rarely shares more strategic information specific to the operation of their company. However, this type of information is necessary in a cross- and up-selling strategy.

You should therefore take advantage of already being in contact with your client to gather as much useful information for your sale as possible.

By collecting as much data as possible on your contact, their company, and their environment, you will identify their objectives and weaknesses preventing them from achieving their goal… and you can then demonstrate how your new offer could solve their problems!
This information gathering will help you create awareness in your client's mind: an awareness between what they are currently doing and what they could be doing, and therefore an awareness of new needs!

To do this, it is necessary to go beyond the simple functional need expressed by your contact.
Head towards the "Why?" of their action, challenge them!
You will then be able to question the initial plan conceived by your client in order to offer them a more suitable solution, and thus sell more and provide more value!

For example, for a professional training organization:

A Sales Director who uses Excel files for their customer relationship management will not necessarily be aware that their organization could be optimized. The current situation suits them!
It is by questioning them about their practices that you can suggest that training on a CRM tool will have a better ROI than simple Excel training. An awareness in their mind can thus be created!

To gather the most information about your contact and encourage them to question their habits and needs, various sales techniques and marketing tools exist.
At KESTIO, we particularly educate our clients on the art of questioning to spark awareness in their prospects. We also use various data enrichment tools to obtain relevant information during our interactions.
If you'd like to learn more about these methods and tools, we invite you to discuss this topic with us!

KEY #2 - Added value

The second key to promoting cross-selling and up-selling is to offer a perspective of added value that complements a service already accessible to the client. In other words, it is necessary to highlight the ROI by showcasing the potential gain.

Situational Exercise & Example

For example, if you offer a solution that solves a major problem, such as the time wasted by a manager manually distributing alerts, you can show how your solution can improve productivity, process, and overall results.

By giving concrete examples of how your solution can help solve your client's problems, you can convince them of the importance of your offer. Continuing with our example, you can explain how the solution's settings allow alerts to be automatically dispatched to people according to certain criteria, which leads to better customer satisfaction thanks to faster alert processing and better distribution of work among employees.

In summary, the key here is to show your client how your additional solution can bring real added value to their business, by enabling them to accomplish more, optimize their time, and better distribute their work.

We previously explained how to initiate this process during the webinar on Thursday, March 16th at 2 PM. This webinar focused on techniques to implement a cross- and up-selling strategy. Click the button below to review the webinar.

KEY #3 - Personalization

Adapt your speech to the profile of your interlocutor! It is important to understand that each customer is different and has specific needs. To be successful in selling effectively, it is essential to know the customer's personality profile in order to present the cross and up-sell from the right angle.

The advantage of cross-selling and up-selling is that you know your client better, you have had several meetings with them, and you potentially work with them. Therefore, you should leverage this knowledge of their profile and tailor your arguments by highlighting the most relevant points for the person in front of you.

For example, if we rely on the personality styles of the DISC model, which presents 4 main emotions through a composition of colors:

D – Dominance
I – Influence
S – Stability
C – Compliance

For example, the proposal of an automated prospecting service will differ depending on the profiles. For a blue profile, we will emphasize the improvement of the process; for a red profile, we will insist on better achievement of objectives; while for a green profile, we will highlight a better experience for the employees.

In addition to understanding the client's personality profile, it's important to continuously gather information to understand their organizational structure, their objectives, and any gaps your solution can fill. From a sales perspective, information is always key!

Ultimately, there are two levels to consider in order to sell effectively:

What needs to be done to attract the customer's attention?
Once they're interested, what do we need to do to tip the decision?

Want to learn more about the DISC model to tailor your communication to your audience's profile and better understand their thinking, feeling, and operating modes? Click the button below to watch our webinar on the DISC profile.

KEY #4: Expert advice

7,2.

On average, it takes more than 7 meetings to successfully complete a complex sale, with no fewer than 6 different stakeholders!*

But what exactly is a complex sale?

A so-called complex sale is characterized by two aspects:

The complexity of the product or service offered, thus requiring a long sales cycle to clearly define the benefits of the product or service for the prospect.
The complexity of the buying environment: a multitude of stakeholders, both internally and within the prospect's organization, all having a role to play in the purchasing decision. Complex sales is a real team sport!

But how do you assess your ability to win a complex sale?
How do you mobilize the different stakeholders to ensure the success of your sale?

Today, we are sharing our 3 keys to success.

*Source: Nomination 2021

KEY #1 - Identify the Components

What do a game of chess and a complex sale have in common?
In both cases, there are behavioral rules and tactics to win the game! Each move represents a cost and must produce the desired outcome.

This analogy to the game of chess is at the heart of our approach to complex sales, the Chessboard Method.

In the Chessboard Method, we compare the stakeholders in a complex sale to the pieces in a game of chess. Knight, Rook, Queen, King... they all have their own specific characteristics and roles to play!

Therefore, the first key to succeeding in complex sales is to clearly identify the role of each of your contacts and their position on the board.

This analysis work will allow you to:

Know when and how to address each contact
Leverage each element to successfully complete your sale
Better anticipate and define the best action at each stage of the game

However, this account analysis exercise requires a precise methodology and tools.
Our complex sales training, based on the Chessboard Method, provides you with the methods to successfully approach your prospects.

À l’issue de cette formation, vos commerciaux seront à même de déceler les différentes parties prenantes d’une décision et de gérer les étapes de progression de leurs affaires.

To learn more about the Chessboard Method, visit our dedicated page.

KEY #2 - Have allies

Pour gagner une vente complexe, il est crucial d’avoir un ou plusieurs interlocuteurs intéressés par votre service ou produit. Cet allié du côté du client vous permettra d’avoir accès à des données factuelles qui vous aideront à identifier les enjeux et le contexte.

Having allies during your sales is therefore a key success factor!

This requires identifying and understanding the dynamics of the players involved (based on behavioral and relational aspects).

At Kestio, we help you define a strategy (that's the overall plan) and adopt a tactic (that's adapting to the field, to the unexpected). To learn more, you can talk to one of our experts on complex sales.

KEY #3 - Balance the power dynamic

In the world of complex sales, it is essential to know how to balance the power dynamic to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. Like in a game of chess, the winner is not the one who is on the defensive, but the one who leads the game.

Pour établir un rapport de force sain et équilibré avec votre client, il est crucial de maîtriser votre art. Vous devez avoir le sentiment de lui apporter quelque chose d’important pour inverser la tendance et prendre la main sur la vente. Si vous ne maîtrisez pas votre art, vous risquez de subir la partie.

It is important not to seek to dominate or be dominated in the seller/buyer relationship. The goal is for both parties to feel confident enough to exchange freely.

Assertiveness is key to balancing the business relationship with your prospect. It will allow you to clearly explain the importance of the exchange.

Deux conseils cruciaux :

It is important to have strong self-esteem and good self-assertion to strike a fair balance in the relationship with the client, without forcing or being aggressive.

It is essential to have absolute certainty that your product or service provides strong added value to your customers.

How to operate to structure such an approach and converge everyone's efforts?

Kestio apporte une réponse à travers un webinar faisant l’analogie avec la série « Le jeu de la Dame ». En associant les règles comportementales et les méthodes d’analyse pour prendre les bonnes décisions, vous serez en capacité de surmonter tous les obstacles potentiels lors de vos ventes complexes.

You can discover our dedicated webinar via the link below.

KEY #4: Expert advice

Ask a leader if their company's sales strategy is clear to their employees, and they will tell you "yes!" without any hesitation.
Now, ask one of their sales representatives if they know why they need to get 5 appointments per week, and the answer will be much less clear!

This difference in perception reflects a challenge you likely face: getting your teams to buy into your sales strategy.
Achieving your goals depends on your employees implementing your company strategy.

How then to make your teams perceive the benefits of this strategy and implement it in the field?

*Source: Forbes survey

KEY #1 – Translate your strategy into actions

One of the most frequent mistakes when discussing sales strategy with sales representatives is focusing solely on the results achieved.
Why? Because you can no longer influence the results! They only represent the visible part of the sales activity.

However, you can influence the various commercial actions that lead to these results.
Implementing a Commercial Action Plan will allow you to define 3 essential levers for your commercial activity, reflecting your strategy:

By focusing on the sales activities of your teams, you provide your sales representatives with two key elements: a clear understanding of your strategy and concrete ways to achieve the established goals.

Because it's one thing to ask your sales representatives to sell 5,000 units of your flagship product... It's quite another for your teams to achieve that goal.
By detailing the steps in your sales process and associating them with concrete sales activities, you help your employees identify their strengths and areas for improvement.

To enable your teams to optimize their sales efforts, we share our “Go/No go” scoring table.

This tool, to be completed daily, helps you select the opportunities with the most potential thanks to various criteria covering the main stages of a sales process!

Download the scoring table

KEY #2 – Enhance your resources

Today, customer expectations have greatly evolved in terms of sales. Influenced by technological changes and purchasing habits, customers are increasingly demanding and have expectations that include:

A personalized experience: sales representatives must identify unique needs by providing added value.

Real-time communication: customers want to be able to communicate with sales representatives quickly and efficiently.

Transparency : sales representatives must be transparent about the products and services they sell, including prices and conditions.

In-depth knowledge: Sales representatives must have in-depth knowledge of the products and services they sell, including the advantages and disadvantages.

From this perspective, it's important for sales representatives to adapt to these new expectations in order to maintain their relevance and competitiveness in the market. Therefore, promote the resources you make available to sales representatives so that they can implement the sales strategy in the field.

List these resources with two objectives: firstly, to make them known to your sales representatives so they can take ownership of them, and secondly, to boost their motivation by showing them that the company is investing to give them the means to achieve the targeted results.

Examples of resources:

At Kestio, our digital learning team offers interactive and engaging training modules to meet the personalized expectations of our clients. If this still seems unclear to you, watch a video presenting our approach.

And if you are interested, you can chat with one of our digital learning experts!

Talk to a digital
learning expert

KEY #3 – Work on your mindset

The mindset of sales teams plays a key role in achieving their goals. A positive attitude can lead to successful negotiations and customer satisfaction.

The manager's role will be to give a positive boost to their team, by celebrating successes and offering positive prospects for the future. This can be accomplished by asking the team about their victories of the week, by exchanging on the new things that have worked, by being empathetic with the team members and by seeking out the unspoken.

Link the sales strategy and objectives for the coming months to the victories won over the past year by asking yourself the following questions:

What lessons have you learned from it?
How are these leveraged in the current strategy?
How can you duplicate them or draw inspiration from them to build a scalable model from the variables observed on a certain scale?

Webinar – Which motivational levers to adopt for
each employee?

KEY #4: Expert advice

50% of salespeople's time is spent
on clients with no potential.

This figure reflects a real problem of alignment between a company's commercial strategy and the actions of its sales representatives.

How to build a sales action plan adapted to your strategy AND your teams?

KEY #1: Where do we start?

As a leader, director, or manager, you often think you know your company inside out and don't need to take stock to define your future sales action plan. But this is a mistake!

Conducting an "assessment" of your organization is a crucial step to ensure your plan aligns with your company's resources and performance.
We strongly advise completing this phase of introspection before defining the targets, actions, and sales cycle of your plan!

If the inimitable "SWOT" bores you, discover the "SpeedBoat" method!

Using the image of a boat, identify your organization's objective, resources, motivations, and obstacles:

Our advice: carry out this exercise with your teams to develop your collective intelligence and involve your employees!

However, gaining this perspective can be complex for people within the company.
The presence of an external perspective helps to frame this retrospective and reveals new elements of analysis!

That's why at KESTIO, we start our support programs by conducting a diagnostic of your sales organization.
In direct collaboration with you, your KESTIO expert has reviewed your practices through various interviews, questionnaires, and data analyses.

The outcome: identification of your growth opportunities and areas for improvement, and the development of a personalized program to leverage these drivers!

KEY #2: How do we get there?

A 'Business Flow' is a tree structure, usable collectively or individually, allowing you to link and compare the implementation of your actions. In other words, it's the roadmap that will allow you to achieve your goal!

What is it?

This simple and powerful tool allows you to define your main objective, which will be divided between the development and retention of active customers and the development of new customers.

For active clients, it will be interesting to focus on:

• Revenue from ongoing projects

• New projects

For new clients, the "Business Flow" helps establish assumptions about the number of leads from different acquisition channels (to be adapted based on the channels you will use):

• Incoming leads « online »

• Incoming leads from referrers

• Incoming leads from networks

• Recommendations of entrants

• Prospecting campaigns for incoming leads

Why use this tool?

KEY #3: Expert advice

Et vous, êtes-vous « accro » à vos meilleurs commerciaux ?

De quoi parle-t-on quand on évoque la menace d’une « trop forte dépendance à ses meilleurs commerciaux » ?

Il ne s’agit pas ici d’addiction (malgré ce titre de paragraphe un peu provocateur !) mais bien de la notion de dépendance au sens premier, définie comme « un rapport de liaison étroite entre quelque chose et ce qui le conditionne ».

En d’autres termes :

Vous pouvez (et devez !) vous considérer comme dépendant de vos meilleurs commerciaux si un faible nombre de membres de votre équipe commerciale représente à lui seul une part vitale de votre chiffre d’affaire.

La question à vous poser est donc : y a-t-il parmi mes commerciaux un ou plusieurs membres dont le départ ou l’invalidité mettrait directement et dangereusement à mal la rentabilité de mon entreprise ?

Si la réponse est oui, vous avez tout intérêt à faire évoluer la situation (et à lire la suite de cet article !) pour rester maître de votre réussite commerciale !

Les dangers de la dépendance envers quelques commerciaux

Dans la pratique, il est courant d’observer des écarts de résultat entre les membres d’une équipe commerciale.

Lorsqu’on évalue la performance des commerciaux (uniquement) sur la base du chiffre d’affaire généré, voici le type de répartition que l’on observe le plus souvent :

- 5 à 10 % de commerciaux « sur-performants », dont les résultats se situent très nettement au-dessus de la moyenne de l’équipe
- 80 à 90 % de commerciaux « dans la moyenne » des résultats attendus et de ceux réalisés par leurs collègues
- 5 à 10 % de commerciaux en « sous-performance » par rapport aux autres (à l’instant T ou plus durablement)

La situation commence à s’avérer inquiétante, lorsque la catégorie des « sur-performers » porte à elle seule 30 à 40% de votre chiffre d’affaires.

Vous entrez alors en zone de risques :

- Risque économique, d’abord : en cas de défaillance de leur part, la pérennité de votre entreprise peut être dangereusement mise à mal.
- Risque RH, ensuite : crainte de perdre l’un de ces précieux « piliers », difficulté à retrouver quelqu’un « d’aussi bon » en cas de départ, et sentiment d’inégalité (concurrence, jalousies…) au sein de l’équipe.

Alors, comment éviter d’aboutir à ce type de situation, ou en sortir si vous vous y trouvez actuellement ?

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

Talents individuels et efficacité collective

1. DÉFINIR « DES POSTES » AU SEIN DE L’ÉQUIPE COMMERCIALE

Vous pensez que tous vos commerciaux ne peuvent pas être des performers, et vous vous êtes résignés à cette idée ?

Et si ce n’était en définitive qu’une question de point de vue ?

C’est vrai, vos commerciaux ne performent pas tous, tout le temps, sur tous les plans et dans tous les contextes, mais en réalité ce sont TOUS de potentiels performers : dans certains domaines et sous certaines conditions… qu’il faudra découvrir pour permettre à leurs points forts de s’exprimer et de se développer.

Définissez un process commercial bien segmenté dont l’efficacité ne reposera pas sur la maîtrise de l’ensemble des étapes par quelques individus particulièrement talentueux.

Concentrez-vous plutôt sur la maîtrise d’une à deux étapes bien définies par chacun d’entre eux.

Vous pourrez alors les affecter prioritairement – voire exclusivement – aux phases de votre process de vente sur lesquelles ils excellent : nourrir le fichier prospects, générer des leads, qualifier les opportunités, construire les propositions commerciales…

En bref, et pour employer une métaphore footbalistique : pour faire gagner l’équipe, mieux vaut distinguer les défenseurs des attaquants, et éviter de cantonner votre avant-centre dans les cages en lui demandant d’arrêter les buts adverses (il risque d’en souffrir… et le résultat du match, de s’en ressentir) !

2. JOUER COLLECTIF

Cette répartition claire et précise des rôles individuels permet in fine de viser la plus grande efficacité collective.

Le découpage des tâches et l’affectation des rôles en fonction des talents et affinités vous assurent un haut niveau d’efficience à chaque étape et le meilleur résultat global au final, là où auparavant, chaque commercial devait maîtriser l’ensemble de la chaîne et se trouvait fortement pénalisé par les étapes pour lesquelles il avait moins d’aisance.

Pour que cette stratégie porte ses fruits, cependant, l’ensemble doit fonctionner de façon fluide et cohérente, ce qui suppose de travailler sur l’esprit d’équipe !

Diffusez une culture de la réussite collective en favorisant la confiance, le partage de bonnes pratiques, le « mentorat » entre collaborateurs, la solidarité dans l’action, et la communication interne.

Évitez de survaloriser un membre de l’équipe pour ses résultat individuels en oubliant les autres : non seulement cela pourrait nuire à l’équilibre général de l’équipe (en favorisant les jalousies et tensions), mais cela pourrait aussi générer d’autres effets pervers, comme l’amener à se recentrer son sur son intérêt individuel, ou le rendre plus « vulnérable » aux difficultés futures.

Le meilleur d’un jour n’est pas forcément celui du lendemain, et il est préférable de valoriser les réussites, les initiatives positives et les efforts (individuels et collectifs) que les personnes.

3. FAIRE EN SORTE QUE CHACUN SE SENTE UN CHAMPION

L’intérêt d’une telle organisation caractérisée par des rôles individuels clairs au sein d’une tactique de jeu collective efficace, quand elle « fonctionne à plein », c’est de permettre à chacun de se sentir un champion.

Cela suppose d’adopter un nouveau point de vue sur la notion même de « performance » et de changer de perspective sur ce qu’elle recouvre : si l’on considère que le chiffre d’affaire directement généré n’est pas la seule façon de créer de la valeur pour l’entreprise (alimenter un fichier de prospects qualifiés est essentiel à la réussite des étapes suivantes du process de vente, et ce fichier en tant que tel représente un véritable capital pour l’entreprise, par exemple), alors le chiffre de vente n’est plus le seul axe de performance à évaluer. Et ceux qui produisent d’autres formes de valeur que celle-ci peuvent également prendre place au « tableau d’honneur » !

Cela amène en définitive les managers commerciaux à remplacer la survalorisation des « Performers » individuels par la recherche des profils que l’on appelle les « A Players »

Ces derniers sont caractérisés par leur capacité à :

- Percevoir les opportunités et les saisir
- Accepter de se remettre en question
- Faire preuve d’humilité et avoir conscience de l’aspect éphémère des succès
- Trouver en eux-mêmes leurs ressources et s’auto-motiver
- Transmettre aux autres, partager et « jouer collectif »

Bref, là où auparavant vous étiez focalisé sur les chiffres réalisés par vos commerciaux, accordez aujourd’hui une grande partie de votre attention à leur état d’esprit.

Ainsi, la charge globale sera plus équitablement répartie entre tous les membres de l’équipage, et le navire sera beaucoup moins soumis aux aléas individuels !

To discover more about using specialized and adapted tools to adopt, check out this webinar on optimizing the performance of your commercial asset:

And the results speak for themselves: in just a few months, we managed to save our sales representatives 50% of their working time! They now dedicate this time exclusively to selling, finally freed from the less interesting tasks. This provides a triple benefit for the company: optimizing salary costs, increasing sales, and improving the motivation of sales representatives. Would you also like to optimize your sales representatives' working time?

Here are 3 key steps on how to save them valuable time, for both them and you.

STEP 1: Specify your objectives

First and foremost, it's important to specify the objective you wish to achieve by optimizing your sales team's working time. This will directly impact the choice of levers to activate subsequently: the stage of the sales cycle concerned, the nature of the tasks to be "lightened", the new processing method adopted for these tasks, etc.

Generally, optimizing the working time of sales representatives falls under one of these 3 objectives:

« DO AS MUCH WITH LESS »:

Are you, for example, forced to manage a constant workload with fewer salespeople, following the unexpected departure of a member of your sales team.

The other team members must then divide the absent salesperson's client portfolio and the corresponding workload among themselves. To prevent them from putting these new accounts on the back burner or neglecting their current clients due to lack of time, it is necessary to relieve them of some of their daily tasks.

« DO MORE WITH AS MUCH »:

Do you want your sales representatives to be able to dedicate time to a new strategic priority, alongside their usual activities?

For example, your company is launching a brand new offer that you are betting heavily on. You want your sales representatives to "go all out" on this offer, and on the targets it addresses. Since their other activities have not disappeared, they will have to find a way to free up time in their usual schedule…

« DO BETTER WITH AS MUCH »:

Have you identified that you regularly lose opportunities due to the disorganization of your sales representatives, and you want them to remain as focused as possible on their core business and your customers.

Have you noticed, for example, that your salespeople spend up to 50% of their time on tasks other than selling (searching for data to enrich their contact files, following up with prospects after a missed appointment, sending follow-up emails, updating the CRM, etc.)?

Not only do these tasks take up a lot of their time (time they don't spend selling), but this time is also costly for you, even though many of these tasks don't require the skills of a salesperson!

Once your main objective is clarified, it's time to move on to step two and identify the priority areas for optimization that will allow you to achieve it.

STEP 2: Identify areas for optimization

To identify the levers for optimizing your salespeople's working time with the greatest impact, a preliminary inventory of their daily tasks is essential.

Several methods can be used to carry out this inventory:

Start from a typical day in the life of a salesperson and note one by one all the tasks performed during the day.
Start from the key stages of the sales cycle (lead generation, prospecting, discovery, closing...) and list all the operations attached to them.

Once your list (as exhaustive as possible) is established, you can assess the potential for optimization of each activity.

This evaluation is based on 4 criteria:

The average task duration (short / medium / high)
Usual frequency (daily / weekly / monthly)
Estimated complexity (low / medium / high)
The sales representative's "added value" in their performance (low / medium / high)

For example, you could assign a degree of "potential for optimization" from 1 to 3 to the task, based on each of these criteria, to then obtain an overall score, as in the example shown below:

The longer and more frequent it is, the more beneficial it is to optimize the time spent on a task, as the impact of this optimization on the overall working time of your sales representatives will be greater.

But don't stop at these two criteria alone: the degree of complexity of a task and the added value brought by the salesperson in its realization are also to be taken into account. The higher these two values are, in fact, the more difficult the task will be to delegate or automate. And therefore, the less you should consider it as a priority in your optimization process.

In our example, three tasks stand out as having a high potential for optimization: qualifying the prospect file, making an appointment with a prospect after a missed first appointment, and sending follow-up emails after an appointment.

Once your priority areas for optimization are defined, all that remains is to define how you can reduce the time spent by sales representatives on each of these tasks. This is the purpose of step 3.

STEP 3: Optimize the sales process

Regardless of the areas for improvement identified, you generally have several options available to optimize the time your sales representatives spend on these tasks.

They mainly fall into 3 categories:

INTERNAL REORGANIZATION:

It involves redistributing certain tasks internally – usually according to a logic of "specialization" – to maximize efficiency.

A purely administrative task, such as entering sales representatives' travel expenses, for example, can be reassigned to the administrative team. Or, entering customer information into the CRM can be entrusted to the sales administration team.

OUTSOURCING:

You can also choose to outsource certain tasks (preferably the most time-consuming ones and those for which salespeople bring the least added value).

This is the case with qualifying contact files, for example. Indeed, many companies specialize in collecting and enriching qualified data to populate prospecting files.

AUTOMATION:

Finally, we can also automate certain tasks, or even certain stages of the sales process. When possible, this option is often the most effective and the least expensive, since it no longer requires any human resources once it is set up.

Various tools can be used for this purpose, depending on the task to be automated: tools linked to the sales representatives' calendars to facilitate appointment scheduling, to their mailbox to set up automated workflows, to their accounts on social networks to automate the publication of posts on LinkedIn / Facebook or Twitter, for example.

However, CRM remains the leader in this area, as it generally combines all these possibilities and options into a single tool, allowing for centralized monitoring of these different actions.

In our case, it is a mix of these three options (depending on the tasks to be optimized) that has allowed us to achieve the enviable result of 50% of our sales representatives' working time being re-allocated to sales!

You will find more details on our internal optimization approach in the article "Optimize your sales process: stop paying your sales representatives not to sell!" published previously on this blog. You can draw inspiration from it to save your sales representatives time and optimize your sales efficiency. So, when are you going to start?

Is optimization your watchword? Then discover in this webinar how to maximize the performance of your sales representatives by saving them 50% of their time:

Faced with this situation, some employers end up resigning themselves and abandoning their recruitment project or choosing profiles that do not fully meet their expectations. However, alternatives to recruiting a new salesperson exist, and they may even prove more profitable for your company. Here are some of them.

1. Improve the sales efficiency of your current team

Did you know that the average conversion rate for sales representatives in the B2B sector is around 10%? This means that 90% of the working time of sales representatives is spent on deals that are destined to be lost!

This is enough to make business leaders feel dizzy... The good news is that it is entirely possible to significantly improve this result, as we prove daily in the field.

Aiming for an average success rate of 30% on commercial proposals is entirely realistic, even in B2B, and it's a desirable minimum.

If your sales representatives are not at this level today, there's no need to recruit new ones to boost your growth: you already have considerable room for improvement with the same human resources (and therefore salary costs)!

We generally manage to significantly improve the success rates of our clients by supporting their sales teams in their progress, particularly in 2 areas: the quality of targeting and the quality of sales actions carried out with their prospects.

The advantage of such an approach is that it not only increases your turnover, but also, and more importantly, optimizes your profitability, which a new hire would not necessarily have achieved.

2. Opting for a more segmented sales organization.

Here's what we most often observe with our clients regarding sales organization: the salesperson is multi-tasking and handles the entire sales chain, from lead generation to closing, including appointment setting, needs analysis, commercial proposal creation, and follow-ups.

This organization presents several disadvantages:

On the one hand, versatility can lead to a certain 'scattering' between the various tasks and therefore a loss of efficiency.
Furthermore, it is rare to find sales professionals who are proficient in all these tasks, which complicates the search for the ideal candidate.
Finally, not all of these tasks offer the same level of interest to an "experienced" salesperson, which can encourage talent turnover.

Formalizing and segmenting the sales process by breaking it down into different phases, then distributing these phases among several people according to their skills and inclinations, is often much more effective.

This generally leads to a significant productivity gain, as each person is focused on a single type of task, gradually gaining experience, speed, and efficiency.

We generally advise breaking down the sales process into at least four phases (identifying prospects, making appointments, conducting interviews and preparing the sales proposal, for example), and then assigning each of these phases to a team member, without exceeding two phases per person.

This type of organization can, in some cases, "spare" you an additional recruitment, thanks to the productivity gains achieved. Failing that, and at a minimum, it simplifies your recruitment process by narrowing the range of skills required for each position.

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

Access our webinars

3. Use substitute or supplementary sales forces.

Another alternative to hiring versatile salaried sales representatives is to use an outsourced sales force: a specialized company (in telephone prospecting, for example), or a freelance business developer.

Using external sales forces has several advantages: with a lower cost price than a permanent recruitment, it can be stopped more simply and is generally accompanied by a commitment to results.

It also offers more flexibility: external sales representatives can intervene permanently or occasionally, on a part-time basis, provide reinforcement during a period of high workload, or be dedicated to a particular target...

Compared to hiring a permanent employee, it represents a financial saving and a controlled risk.

Another advantage of this approach is that the outsourced tasks are generally the least complex (generating contact files, telephone prospecting, etc.), which allows the permanent sales team to concentrate on tasks with 'higher added value'.

However, to be effective, the use of an outsourced sales force must:

Focus on a well-defined scope and follow an established, internally controlled process
Ensure regular monitoring of key performance indicators via a CRM or ad hoc dashboards.
Rely on sales support tools designed and validated internally: sales book, standard emails, references and arguments per target, etc.)

This implies having well-documented your sales cycle, but also demonstrating a certain agility to ensure a smooth handover between external and internal teams.

At one of our clients, this strategy made it possible to optimally manage an activity marked by strong seasonality, by reducing the number of permanent recruitments initially planned from 5 to 2, to achieve a higher objective!

4. Retain your current sales representatives!

The three alternative solutions we have just presented aim to address the business development situations that motivate a large proportion of sales recruitment projects. Another part of these recruitment projects is, however, linked to the sometimes significant turnover observed in these positions.

Since the demand from companies for experienced sales profiles is significantly higher than the supply, market conditions favor talent volatility: 38% of salespeople have received job offers without actively searching, according to a study on sales employment conducted by Stepstone.³

To retain your sales representatives in general, and the best among them in particular, it is therefore essential to value the sales function as such.

Compensation is obviously an important motivator, but competition is fierce in this area as well: salespeople's salaries are 57% higher than the average salary in France, according to a study by the Uptoo firm⁴…

To stand out, ensure that your sales representatives' daily work is interesting and stimulating: high-quality working environment and conditions, effective tools, a clear and relevant sales action plan, a management style that promotes personal growth, internal opportunities for advancement, recognition of initiatives and successes... All these elements matter to your employees and encourage their long-term commitment!

By working on all or part of these 4 areas, you can significantly reduce the number of sales recruitments to be carried out for your company, while effectively meeting your growth and sales development objectives.

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:

1: According to the 2018 talent shortage survey conducted by ManPowerGroup: http://www.manpowergroup.fr/penurie-talents-recrutement-2018/

2: Source ParisJob: https://www.parisjob.com/actualites/commercial-chiffres-paris.htmls://www.parisjob.com/actualites/commercial-chiffres-paris.html

3 : Quoted by France Info : https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/c-est-mon-boulot/la-grande-penurie-de-commerciaux_1766077.html

As we told you last week¹, a business model is not fixed in time. On the contrary, its ambition is to evolve and improve: indeed, your customers change, working methods change, your company changes, your salespeople change... Finally, as you will have understood, your entire environment evolves - and consequently - your business model must also evolve to remain relevant.

How to analyze my model?

If you have followed our series from the beginning, you are applying your sales model to the letter in your CRM. This also means that all the data painstakingly collected during this period is centralized and usable.

And precisely, you "only" have to exploit this data!

Following the definition of your business model, you were able to define the indicators to follow in order to know the impact of the actions implemented, make relevant adjustments and strengthen the success factors. You will therefore need one or more dashboards to have a precise view of these different indicators.

Ideally, you should have a CRM tool that allows you to customize these dashboards to highlight the analyses you need. Fortunately, with Koban, for example, you can customize your dashboards with the necessary indicators.

Perform a daily analysis.

As KESTIO mentioned in the previous article, the goal is not to analyze your entire business model every day and make significant changes in the first week of implementation.

But still, we like to have a daily view of the main indicators (KPIs), just in case.

These "flash figures," as we like to call them at Koban, are a good alternative. They represent the KPIs that you decide to track daily: number of opportunities won, number of opportunities lost, time spent, conversion rate, costs of opportunities, etc. They are calculated automatically and in real time. And very often, it is at this precise moment that we are very happy to have invested in a CRM (those who have experienced pivot tables will understand!).

The little bonus in all of this? You can display these flash figures right on your homepage (among other places), which allows you to have a direct view by monitoring the proper execution of your business model on a daily basis and to be very reactive in adjusting elements with low impact, if needed.

These indicators can be both common or individual to measure the performance of each of your sales representatives. This is very important as a manager.

These indicators also allow you to manage your sales model on a daily basis and implement small corrective actions before it's too late. For example, you notice that your sales representative X is very far from his monthly targets. You can then schedule time with him to manage him and understand what is "holding him back."

Conduct a more in-depth analysis - The "ANALYSIS" Module.

Beyond daily monitoring, you can – in fact, you must – manage and evaluate sales effectiveness and the sales effort provided by the company (in other words, your business model). To do this, your CRM will once again be your best friend.

Let's take the example of Koban and its specific analysis module. It allows you, among other things, to analyze all your data by creating personalized dashboards: pie charts, curves, tables, histograms, etc.

You can analyze almost everything very easily. More comprehensive than flash figures, dashboards really allow you to highlight relevant analyses: what worked in your model / what worked less well / which segment generates the most revenue / a summary table of sales for each of your sales representatives, etc. Because just as "working a lot" does not necessarily mean "earning money", it is necessary for any company, small or large, to calculate the effectiveness and profitability of its commercial actions in order to focus effort on the best actions.

But remember, your CRM isn't just for managing sales activities; it's also for your marketing efforts to generate qualified leads for your sales team. This data should be an integral part of your analysis to identify areas for improvement and optimization, such as the conversion rate of leads from marketing, the number of prospects generated by marketing, etc. The goal is to compare all sales and marketing data to identify areas for improvement.

Let's not forget that the goal of all this is to evolve your business model.

We cannot stress enough that a business model is forged over time through experience and feedback. It will never be fixed. Hence the importance of having a tool that centralizes all your data and allows you to keep the history in order to compare and challenge the data. This is how you will improve performance, and consequently, increase revenue.

Key indicators not to be missed

Well, obviously too many indicators kill the indicators. The risk is getting lost in a pile of useless studies and not coming up with any relevant analysis. With KESTIO, we have selected the indicators that you must - at a minimum - follow if you want to extract relevant analyses. Of course, other indicators will need to be added depending on your environment and organization:

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST

This one is truly The must-have!

Customer acquisition cost is the average amount spent to convert a prospect into a customer. This investment can include marketing expenses as well as the cost of time spent by the sales representative to convert the prospect into a customer.

Your business model is largely based on the customer segments to prioritize in order to generate the most margin. But to do this, you have to take into account the cost of customer acquisition.

Indeed, if I realize that my "Gold" clients cost me almost as much money as they bring in (because I have a high acquisition cost), this may lead me to review certain elements of my business model: if, at the same time, my "Silver" clients are certainly less interesting in terms of "pure" revenue, but cost me almost nothing in acquisition compared to what they bring me (thanks to a low acquisition cost), this ultimately makes them more interesting than expected...

What do I do? Clearly, we would be tempted to switch the "Gold" clients to "Silver" and vice versa.

Understand that your "GOLD" clients may have had a lower acquisition cost when your business model was set up, but again, the environment evolves as well as your costs... Hence the importance of analyzing your model after a certain time and implementing appropriate corrective actions.

SALES EFFORT BY TARGET

This indicator allows you to optimize your sales representatives' time. Thanks to it, you can judge the effort of each sales representative on a type of target. You can also make a comparison between your sales representatives, to see who allocates their effort best. This is not to "monitor" your sales representatives. But it is interesting to know, for example, that sales representative A has made an average of 10 physical appointments on a target while sales representative B has made 15 for the same result.

Beyond that, it allows you to identify the targets on which your sales representatives are allocating far too much effort for little result and, conversely, those for which you are not devoting enough effort. As a result, you can adjust your business model accordingly (if necessary).

SALES CONVERSION RATE

The conversion rate helps identify the performance of a salesperson or team in converting a prospect into a customer.

You can not only analyze the overall conversion rate (i.e., for all your sales representatives), but also the individual conversion rate (i.e., sales representative by sales representative). Again, this is not to "spy" on your sales representatives, but rather to identify the sources that hinder development and thus implement appropriate actions.

AVERAGE BASKET PER ACCOUNT TYPE

The average basket defines the average amount spent by each customer. This indicator can be tracked per order or for a given period, for the entire lifetime of the customer. It allows you to identify on which customer segment the average purchase basket is the highest, for example – or conversely – on which customer segment the average purchase basket is the lowest.

NUMBER OF OPPORTUNITIES CREATED

The number of opportunities created is a simple indicator to track the effectiveness of marketing and sales.

Indeed, a high number of opportunities created will reflect several things:

Marketing generates a lot of qualified leads
And/or do your salespeople have opportunities with existing clients or through a channel other than marketing (word-of-mouth, client recommendations, etc.)?

In short, your sales and marketing teams are well aligned and doing a good job!

On the contrary, a small number of opportunities created will force you to analyze other indicators. In particular, where do the opportunities come from?

Do they come from marketing or from the sales representatives themselves?

As a result, you'll know which channel to focus on to generate more opportunities.

Again, this list is by no means exhaustive (we are thinking in particular of indicators linked to margin!). These are "standard" indicators that any company can analyze to develop its business model. But there will obviously be other indicators to take into account depending on your internal strategy and your environment.

So, we've reached the end of this joint series between Koban and KESTIO... We hope you enjoyed it and, above all, that these articles have helped you! In any case, we have greatly enjoyed combining our skills and visions to offer you a complete and operational methodology.

And to go further, we have even more surprises in store for you very soon, including a summary white paper and a webinar to discuss the topic with you live and answer your questions directly!

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

¹ : Did you miss the previous episodes? Don't panic! Treat yourself to a little catch-up session:

Article 1: What is a business model and how do you build one?

Article 2: How to translate your sales strategy into a CRM tool?

Article 3: 3 key points for building an effective business model

Article 4: Structuring and optimizing your business model in your CRM

Article 5: How to effectively deploy your business model

KESTIO and KOBAN, it's a partnership that feels natural: the former supports SMEs in their commercial development through an online sales coaching platform for leaders, managers and sales representatives; the latter helps them to effectively deploy their strategy and commercial actions by generating maximum ROI, via a high-performance CRM solution.

From this meeting was born an idea (which became a desire, then a reality): to combine our skills and visions to support you in defining and implementing your business model!

Thanks to our previous articles, you have all the keys in hand to build your business model, translate it operationally into your CRM tool, and apply it daily.

This week, we're continuing our momentum by discovering how to successfully structure your sales model and data in your CRM. Indeed, a good sales model can only last if it is based on accessible, relevant, reliable, and usable data! Here's how to make sure they are.

Collect and structure data in your CRM.

The problem with data is that it can change very quickly, and it often needs to be enriched to remain relevant.

Let's take a simple example: employee turnover in a company.

How many responses have you already received to your emails indicating that the contact has "left the company, etc." This is why updating your data is ESSENTIAL, and even VITAL, to sustain your business model.

COLLECT DATA VIA THE CRM

We have already discussed the importance of using relevant data for the proper functioning of your business model. Aside from centralizing all your available data, your CRM tool will allow you to automatically collect very interesting data.

Firstly, some data is easily accessible and available, but not worth entering manually: "generic" data such as turnover, for example, is tedious and time-consuming to enter manually. Fortunately, you can automate the receipt of this type of data via connectors with external sites (such as Corporama). This allows you to automatically retrieve a lot of information and frees up your sales representatives to focus on more "sensitive" information.

In addition to receiving "external" data, you're sure to have internal data in your company that's present in other tools (customer invoicing, production tool, etc.). It may be worthwhile to "bring up" some of this information into your CRM to make the data accessible and usable.

Similarly, by synchronizing your CRM with your information system, you will be able to import the information it contains into other tools, thus avoiding tedious and error-prone double entries. The goal is for relevant information to benefit everyone.

Secondly, a CRM tool will allow you to collect so-called 'personal' data on your customers' / prospects' behaviors. Thanks to the marketing part of your tool, your customers / prospects will be tracked in order to collect information automatically, allowing you to see for each contact:

The pages of the site he visited – when – and how many times
If they have opened your quote.
If they have read the latest email the salesperson sent them.
If it's a return visit (i.e., if a prospect returns to your site after X amount of time)
If they have opened, read, or clicked on a button in an email campaign.
Etc…

In short, this is data that you would not have been able to collect without a tool that does it automatically for you. And this data is very valuable for salespeople. It allows them to judge the level of interest of a contact, their "potential", and thus to refine and enrich your customer knowledge. A "Bronze" customer who reads all your new product emails, clicks on ALL your buttons, and visits your service presentation pages may deserve to be re-qualified as a "Silver" customer? Or at least, it's worth taking a closer look...

Finally, there is the data collected directly by your sales representatives. They are an invaluable source for feeding the CRM with information that you will not find anywhere else (number of machine tools installed, internal validation process, etc.). This data is very heterogeneous and will have to be made usable.

However, we know that sales representatives are often very busy and (sometimes) don't take the time to enter all the data into the CRM. Yet, they know your customers best... To overcome this problem, we can easily add mandatory fields when a sales representative creates a new record. This is quite practical when it comes to data that is essential to the proper functioning of your business model and we realize after 6 months that no one has filled in this field!

STRUCTURE YOUR DATA WITH A CRM

Once again, having data is good, but it is still necessary that this data is centralized, structured and usable. Without this, your business model may not last long...

That's perfect, your CRM is precisely there for that: to centralize data on a single platform and make it accessible.

CRMs offer many practical tips to assist you in this process. Take the example of Koban (with all objectivity, of course! : ))

You have X contacts on an account record. Perfect, but not all contacts are created equal... Indeed, you're not going to chase up the accountant for your quote, nor the marketing manager for an unpaid invoice. To avoid this kind of mishandling, our CRM displays tags above each contact indicating whether they are the billing contact, the decision-maker, etc.

Another scenario is that you may want to enter information that is specific to your environment and therefore does not exist 'out-of-the-box' in your tool. Fortunately, any good CRM allows you to add custom fields or objects that you can display on your customer's record.

Let's take a very concrete example: you sell printers to your customers. Some of them have several machines in the company. It is therefore important that you have a clear and direct view of the machine fleet on each of your customer records. In this case, you can create a custom field dedicated to this information and display it in your contact records to collect this data via your sales representatives and make it accessible and usable for your future actions (marketing campaign, segmentation of your base, etc.).

Structure your business model

SALES PROCESSES

Your business model necessarily integrates the management of the sales cycle and the various processes. And that's a good thing, because a good sales tool is there to help you generate more revenue, and more efficiently.

In your CRM, you will be able to implement your sales process according to the segmentation defined by the commercial model (by type of client, by market, by type of offer, etc.). This process, built around the stages of the sales cycle, will allow you to group together all commercial opportunities of the same nature, to monitor their evolution in the commercial process and to easily identify the opportunities that you should prioritize (for example by classifying them by segments: Gold, Silver and Bronze). This gives you a clear and direct view of all your current opportunities, with their probability of success and their level of progress.

The CRM will act as a true assistant for sales representatives, enabling them to monitor all their sales activities, ensure no opportunity is missed, and focus their efforts on the most promising ones (defined according to your business model, of course).

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

Last important point, communication!

Yes, your business model is based on data but also on its proper execution by your teams.

The goal is to have all your teams working hand in hand and on the same wavelength. No more situations where each salesperson is the only one who holds (in their head) the knowledge of the clients they are in charge of, or where salespeople and marketers don't speak the same language!

Your CRM tool will help you overcome these difficulties and improve internal communication, thereby facilitating the execution of the business model on a daily basis.

Firstly, you obviously have the entire history of your actions / appointments / calls, etc. on your client files, as well as a "comments" field allowing you to add notes, or specific / important points that will be accessible to all users. Are you on vacation for two weeks?

Does a "GOLD" customer contact you during this time? No problem, your colleague can easily take over thanks to the history of actions and your comments on the record!

But that's not all; there are many other features that allow you to improve data communication within your company. The news feed, which includes all the important actions to stay informed every minute of the day, the ability to attach documents to your files...

In short, your CRM tool will support the deployment of your sales model by allowing you to centralize and leverage all your data and by structuring your sales processes.

All this, of course, with one goal: to facilitate the work of your teams, who will be able to rely on a relevant tool to monitor sales activity on a daily basis!

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

¹ : And for those who wish to (re-)discover the previous articles in this series, written in collaboration by KESTIO and KOBAN, it's here:

Article 1: What is a business model and how do you build one?

Article 2: 3 key points for building an effective business model

KESTIO and KOBAN, it's a partnership that feels natural: the former supports SMEs in their commercial development through an online sales coaching platform for leaders, managers and sales representatives; the latter helps them to effectively deploy their strategy and commercial actions by generating maximum ROI, via a high-performance CRM solution.

From this meeting was born an idea (which became a desire, then a reality): to combine our skills and visions to support you in defining and implementing your business model!

Last week, KESTIO discussed on the Koban blog the importance of an optimized business model to increase the efficiency and ROI of your sales activities.

But after clearly defining this model, it still needs to be translated operationally into a suitable tool to track the process daily. And this part can seem quite abstract for people who aren't used to working with a CRM.

As you'll have understood, this week we're going to talk about CRM and, more specifically, how to translate your previously defined business model into a tool such as Koban.

1. A CRM tool for a segmented and actionable database

You have very well defined your customer/prospect segments, but now you need to be able to exploit them. For this, you need a tool that allows you to centralize your data in order to then carry out a clear and precise segmentation.

Theory is great, but how does it work in practice?

A good CRM allows you to centralize your entire database on a single platform and segment it initially with 'statuses'. The most common statuses are 'customers', 'prospects', 'competitors', etc. The special thing about Koban, for example, is that you can personalize your statuses according to your environment and strategy, which makes your database clearer for you and your employees.

For example, you can create the categories "hot prospects", "cold prospects", "former clients" or any other that seems commercially useful to you.

TAGS: On each record, you can add tags to segment your database more precisely. Tags are like labels you place “on the heads” of your customers/prospects. For example, you can create a tag category for “industry” or “potential.” This allows you to identify all customers whose tag is equal to “Gold” or “Bronze.” This is very useful for launching highly targeted and personalized sales and/or marketing campaigns.

2. A CRM tool to organize your activity.

You have your strategy, you have your segmented and usable database. It's time to take action!

Indeed, you have defined a list of actions based on your segments; the goal now is not to forget to do them...

Any self-respecting CRM allows you to create customizable action types based on your strategy. You can create as many as you want: task, phone call, email, in-person meeting, phone meeting, video conference, demo, client visit, etc.

The little extra at Koban: you assign a color to each type of action. This way, once in your calendar, you have a very visual rendering that gives you an idea of what your day will be like! Of course, you have access to your colleagues' calendars if you need to make an appointment for them or assign them an action.

3. A CRM tool to save time and automate low value-added tasks.

We all agree on one point: the goal is to save your salespeople as much time as possible so that they can focus on the most profitable customer segments. To do this, CRM and marketing have a role to play.

Does automation resonate with you?

SALES AUTOMATION

You have defined high-potential segments and others with fewer stakes that you can easily identify using your centralized and segmented database.

The goal is to let salespeople handle the most interesting segments and leave the others to... automation (or more precisely, to marketing).

To do this, your CRM will allow you to set up automated scenarios (generally composed of a series of pre-defined emails) that aim to spark your contact's interest, maintain contact without being intrusive, and drive conversion.

This frees up a lot of time for sales representatives and, above all, avoids cold calls, which are very often a waste of time (and therefore money). Not only do the responses go directly to the assigned sales representative, but the results of your 'prospecting' emails are directly linked to the prospect's record (when they read the email, if they clicked, etc.). Thus, if the internet user has shown enough interest, the marketing teams can easily or automatically pass the lead on to a sales representative, who will have their entire history.

DAILY AUTOMATIONS

Beyond automated scenarios, you can set up numerous automations that save time and, above all, prevent you from forgetting reminders or appointments. Yes, a salesperson's brain is full, and it can happen that they forget...

For example, you can set an automatic action in the sales representatives' calendar at the end of each appointment, such as: "send product sheet". Or, schedule recurring visits to your "OR" clients every 4 months. The time slot will be blocked in the calendar, which reduces the risk of forgetting or constantly postponing!

LEAD SCORING

Okay, now we're going to move on to some more advanced features, but they are very worthwhile! To explain it to you very briefly, you can track your website (record visits to your site) and assign points to each page of your site.

As a result, a user will visit your pages and accumulate points as they browse. The goal? To assess their interest and determine if they are "ready" to be directly passed on to the sales force.

Below a defined threshold of points, the user will only receive emails via an automated marketing scenario. On the other hand, above the defined score, the user will be assigned to a dedicated salesperson because they have shown a strong interest in your products / services!

These are just very brief examples of everything you can do and automate in a CRM tool like Koban. These examples illustrate the importance of supporting your business model with features like these to increase your profitability and productivity on a daily basis.

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

¹ : And for those who wish to (re-)discover the first article, written by KESTIO and published on the KOBAN website, it's here: What is a sales model and how do you build it?

KESTIO and KOBAN, it's a partnership that feels natural: the former supports SMEs in their commercial development through an online sales coaching platform for leaders, managers and sales representatives; the latter helps them to effectively deploy their strategy and commercial actions by generating maximum ROI, via a high-performance CRM solution.

From this meeting was born an idea (which became a desire, then a reality): to combine our skills and visions to support you in defining and implementing your business model!

What if these hours were simply misused (at least in part)?

One of the causes to consider is indeed the lack of structuring of the sales chain, which can cause a loss of efficiency and sometimes significant hidden costs. We at KESTIO know something about this, since we ourselves faced this internally before readjusting our sales process by optimizing it.

Here's how, and with what results.

1. What does "optimizing your sales process" mean, and why should you do it?

This involves seeking the best cost/result ratio at each stage of your sales process, to achieve optimal performance!

There are at least 2 reasons to do so:

The current economic climate encourages optimizing the return on investment of each action implemented: tight market, no "natural" growth, therefore a greater commercial effort to provide, a tendency to lower sales prices and increase distribution costs... The companies that fare best are therefore those that manage to preserve their margins, and optimizing marketing costs contributes very directly to this!

Many companies have not yet truly organized their sales function. However, studies show that at least 40% of salespeople's time on average is spent on "doing administrative work"¹. In other words, 40% of your sales payroll is not focused on what creates the most value, namely interactions with prospects and customers! Considering that a salesperson is (sometimes very) expensive and difficult to recruit and retain, it is essential that they focus primarily on their core business…

2. A real-world example of sales process optimization.

Here's an example directly from our own experience at KESTIO to illustrate how a seemingly insignificant activity can quickly become very costly if you don't adopt this approach to reduce its impact.

INITIAL CONTEXT:

At KESTIO, we have been working for some time with 3 in-house sales representatives in charge of handling the first appointments (qualification of needs) with our prospects.
Across all their telephone appointments, we observe a rate of approximately 20% of 'no-shows' (which is a good rate compared to averages observed elsewhere).
With 10 appointments scheduled per day per sales representative, this results in a potential of 30 clients per week (2 per day x 3 sales representatives x 5 days per week) to contact again, solely to schedule a new appointment…
This represented (until we changed our process) 1 to 2 hours of work per week for each salesperson, which, for 3 salespeople, totaled up to 24 hours per month (or 3 working days) spent on a task with no added value!

When you know the salary cost of an experienced salesperson and calculate what this simple position represents annually, it encourages reflection...

THE SOLUTION IMPLEMENTED:

That's why we decided to implement an automated workflow system: the prospect who misses the appointment automatically receives an email offering 3 new time slots, and if necessary, a reminder a few days later.

This system now allows us to re-book 80% of missed appointments, and the remaining 20% are followed up with a phone call by a specialized provider.

Implementing this simple workflow has allowed us to save several thousand euros per year, while creating better working conditions for our sales representatives, who now spend most of their time practicing the profession they love and are skilled in.

And this example represents only one element among many others on which it is possible to act to benefit from a positive leverage effect!

To identify all potential areas for improvement, it is necessary to ask, for each action implemented, what is the appropriate level of effort to produce in relation to the expected result and the potential generated.

3. How to implement such an approach within your company?

To do this, start by reviewing each step of your sales chain (prospecting, qualification, sales proposal, closing, etc.) by analyzing the tasks attached to them in light of this key question: "Given the same result, what is the most efficient (fastest, least expensive, etc.) way to accomplish this task?"

Based on this, you can build an effective sales system by applying this method:

Identify potential areas for optimization. For example: time spent by sales representatives on administrative tasks.
Share best practices within the team. For example: sharing a tool allowing prospects to access available slots in the salespeople's calendars in real-time, without seeing the details of their agenda.
Define an optimized process. For example: building an automated workflow to follow up with prospects who were unable to attend their phone appointment (integrating the use of the tool mentioned above).
Test and improve the defined process. For example: improve the wording of the standard follow-up email. Please note: always modify only one element of the process at a time to analyze the impact of each change.
Generalize and disseminate the optimized process to the entire team for implementation and feedback (continuous improvement loop).

Following this approach for your entire sales process will allow you to build an optimized sales operating model and thus reduce all losses related to uncontrolled factors, to ultimately improve your sales results.

Focus primarily on high-impact and easily achievable areas for improvement (in short, optimize the optimization process itself! 😉)

As you progress, you will improve the performance of your entire sales chain to spend better and less, while increasing the interest in the missions entrusted to your teams!

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:

¹ : An IKO System study on sales representatives' working time dating from 2013 even put the proportion of this working time spent on what they called "non-sales" at 59% at the time!

It also impacts employee engagement. In a context of generational renewal of sales teams and managerial evolution, how do you ensure that you set goals that are ambitious, realistic, and sustainably motivating for your sales forces?

Setting sales representatives' objectives: a strategic topic

Let's first clear up a fairly common misunderstanding.

No, defining individual sales targets does not only consist of setting the turnover that each of them must achieve in order to qualify for a commission!

Firstly, the criteria considered to evaluate their effective contribution to the company's objectives can be multiple: margin generated, percentage of sales achieved on a particular offer or target, number of new customers signed, etc.
Secondly, their level of engagement can also be measured by the resources used to achieve it: number of new prospects identified, number of telephone or in-person appointments made, number of sales proposals sent, conversion rate, etc.
Lastly, objectives can include a collective component and promote cooperation, in addition to individual performance: conditioning variable compensation on achieving a collective revenue threshold beforehand, taking into account the working time spent on internal projects, etc.

It is therefore a real strategic issue involving choices whose impact is not only financial but also managerial: employee engagement and team operating methods partially depend on it.

5 best practices for defining sales objectives

1. Involve the sales team in the reflection

The most common pitfall on this subject is reusing the previous year's model and applying it identically, without questioning its effectiveness. It is useful to plan a consultation phase with the sales team on the subject: get their opinion, their feedback from the field regarding the system already in place, and any suggestions for improvement they may have. Present your own ideas for development before implementing them, in order to test their reaction to the options being considered.

Taking these feedbacks into account ensures greater buy-in from sales representatives to the objectives you will present to them later.

Consulting them does not mean involving them in the final decision, but it is useful to know their perception and to integrate it into your thinking, among other criteria that relate to a more global vision of the company.

2. Define operating variable elements.

As we saw earlier, there are potentially many criteria that can be considered in defining sales objectives.

Remember that each of these criteria must then be regularly monitored and will factor into the calculation of the sales team's variable compensation. You will therefore have to make choices, otherwise you risk creating a complex and unmanageable system!

Select your criteria (preferably at least 2, and no more than 4) and define their weighting according to the importance you give them.

The incentive system you propose must guarantee the motivation and engagement of your sales representatives over time. For example, you can combine a results objective (achieve €500,000 in sales during the year) with a means objective (schedule 8 prospect appointments per week, etc.).

3. Perform a preliminary simulation of the planned system

The best way to ensure the operational aspect of the selected criteria and to verify the overall consistency of the planned system is to test it. Realizing during the year that the system is not working satisfactorily could have serious consequences for the company.

Based on the figures available for year N, perform simulations to verify that:

the data necessary for establishing the variables are available (already tracked in your current tracking system, or if not, easily / quickly accessible)
the calculation of multi-criteria and weighted factors is simple to perform (not a complex process)
The results obtained are consistent (no significant deviation from the current system).

Also, verify that these results are motivating for your sales representatives! Aim for 70% to 80% of the team (at a minimum) to achieve their sales targets and receive satisfactory bonuses.

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

4. Establish 'fair' criteria

For objectives to be perceived as "fair" and generate lasting commitment, they should be defined based on criteria that directly depend on the actions of the sales representatives: number of appointments secured, deals won, etc.

Exclude external factors or third-party interventions as much as possible: within the framework of new business models, in particular, Marketing can intervene on all or part of the stages of the sales cycle; it will therefore be necessary to distinguish it from the actions directly attributable to sales representatives.

Also, as far as possible, adopt a qualitative approach: sending out as many sales proposals as possible, for example, should not necessarily become an end in itself; combining it with a notion of conversion rate allows you to more accurately measure the quality of the work done.

Depending on the situation, it may also be important to consider certain disparities (between junior and senior sales representatives, geographical territories covered, account development and pure acquisition, etc.) to reward not only the results obtained but more broadly the efforts mobilized.

5. Communicate in two stages

Once your system is established in a coherent, efficient, and 'fair' manner, don't neglect the (crucial) step of presenting it to the sales team members!

Plan your communication in two stages:

A collective presentation to the team, which should explain how it works, inform the team of the criteria taken into consideration, and highlight the overall coherence of the system with regard to the company's objectives (financial, strategic, etc.) and the reality on the ground.
Individual discussion time with each member of the sales team, to specify individual objectives in detail for each person, and answer any questions raised.

Sales representatives should be able to get a clear idea of the variable compensation they can expect, and translate the objectives thus set into action priorities and concrete organizational elements.

Also, remember to specify how key data will be tracked (weekly reporting, CRM tracking, etc.) and how often the results will be evaluated.

If the defined system adheres to these best practices and is regularly monitored and effectively managed once implemented, you maximize the chances that your sales representatives will actively commit to achieving their objectives and results!

To go further, discover in our webinar, 4 keys to regain control in a difficult situation:

But are you sure you've considered all the components of an effective sales strategy when establishing your annual strategy?

Does it include all the components of the "go to market" strategy for your product or service offering, meaning a coherent guideline that aligns: objectives, resources, allocated resources, and the resulting operational organization?

A reminder of the key points that ensure you have defined an efficient sales strategy and that give you every chance of achieving your objectives.

Results objectives and their monitoring indicators

Have you set performance goals (and you've done well!)? This implies monitoring and managing their achievement throughout the year to ensure you reach them. How?

By defining the associated measurement indicators, and therefore the corresponding KPIs to evaluate them: "Outputs" indicators on the expected results and "Inputs" indicators on the activities expected to achieve them.

The resources

Closely linked to the targeted customer or prospect segments, the resources dedicated to acquisition and retention are also a key element to define precisely: preferred sales channels and revenue streams expected per channel, marketing and communication resources deployed, lead flow expected to reach the level of commercial activity defined with regard to the final objectives.

Priority targets, based on potential criteria

The scope of intervention of the sales teams is a key input for reflection. Segmenting customers and prospects is a necessity. Are your customers classified according to criteria such as turnover level or margin generated? Is there an assessment of their development potential over the year?

Discover KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

All topics related to sales performance with our experts:

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, CEO

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

The level of commercial effort to be applied to each of these segments

Effort allocation then involves determining the coverage and sales pressure on these segments.

Therefore, the various types of actions to be carried out in the sales process (calls, discovery meetings, presentations, training, etc.) and the allocation of resources and sales time per action across different segments will be adjusted. Failure to define this at the strategy level means that each salesperson will decide how to allocate their efforts according to their own criteria. Are you willing to take that risk?

The optimal sales organization

Formalizing the strategy also involves making choices about sales organization: should teams be specialized in different segments, or should we rely on different types of employees depending on the stage of the sales process?

Client visits have a cost, and the time spent on pre-sales impacts commercial profitability.

This is why some companies might, for example, entrust lead detection and opportunity qualification to inside sales teams, while assigning the needs discovery phases through to contractualization to field sales representatives.

If all the points raised have been addressed when you defined YOUR sales strategy, you have laid a solid foundation and created the right conditions from the start to give yourself the best chance of success. The next step is to break down this sales strategy into operational action plans and effectively manage them to ensure that the objectives are achieved.

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To prevent your sales representatives from interpreting it in their own way, gradually deviating from it, or even completely disregarding it, it is necessary to translate this commercial strategy into operational directives and effectively manage its implementation.

To achieve this, be vigilant on these 4 essential points.

Develop an individual commercial action plan with each salesperson

Defining a clear commercial strategy and presenting it to your team is necessary, but not enough to ensure its effective implementation during the year. This is the purpose of the commercial action plans defined at the individual level.

They are generally co-constructed by the salesperson and their manager, and re-evaluated or updated on a regular basis: annually, semi-annually, quarterly, or monthly (this is then referred to as a MAP, for monthly action plan).

This co-creation is the key to engagement for each salesperson. The frequency can be chosen based on the sales cycle of your products and services, or according to the management style adopted.

Some companies, for example, define annual action plans and then weight the objectives monthly or quarterly according to the seasonality of their business.

For example, a digital services company can generate 50% of its annual revenue in a single four-month period, during which the majority of its subscriptions are renewed.

Each salesperson must have an operational action plan that includes the key data necessary for their daily activity, on points such as: targeting, intensity and the nature of sales actions, in order to have the means to achieve the defined objectives.

Ensure that this individual action plan accurately reflects the business strategy.

This sales action plan is the operational implementation of the sales strategy defined beforehand. It must therefore reflect it and translate it on an individual scale, taking into account the allocation of sales efforts on your targets, whether in coverage or sales pressure, and the sales organization you have opted for.

If the commercial strategy determines, for example, that 35% of the overall turnover must be achieved on segment A of the customer base and 25% on segment B, two different translations are possible in the individual action plan of one of the sales representatives:

either they must generate 35% of their revenue from segment A and 25% from segment B themselves (within an organization that distributes the client portfolio by geographic area, for example);
or they must generate 100% of their revenue from segment A, with other sales representatives responsible for segment B (in the case of an organization with sales representatives specialized by client segments).

Hence the importance of defining the action plan at the individual level, to ensure that the concrete application of the commercial strategy does not lead to multiple, or even divergent, interpretations!

Clearly define the activities to be carried out with your sales representatives

To avoid any risky improvisation on the part of your sales representatives, define precisely with them and for each:

the targets on which they will work (type of accounts, meeting precise targeting criteria, or even a list of named accounts, and types of contacts targeted within the accounts)
the type of commercial actions to be carried out, at each stage of the sales process (leads to be processed, calls, physical appointments, quotes or commercial proposals, follow-up, etc.), in front or back office
the frequency and intensity of these actions, per customer segment (for example, 8 calls and 3 annual appointments for prospects attached to customer segment A)

From a more qualitative point of view, also specify the sales methods to be implemented at each stage of the sales process (for example: company pitch, type of questions to ask in a discovery meeting) and the expected results for each of them (data to be collected during a discovery meeting, elements to be validated to qualify an opportunity during a sales meeting, etc.).

Regular check-ins between salespeople and their manager are essential to communicate these guidelines and monitor their implementation. They allow to identify discrepancies with what is expected, to address difficulties encountered in the field, and to refine the sales tools used (call script, interview guide, standard report to be saved in the CRM, etc.).

The frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.) and the degree of 'formality' of these follow-up meetings are to be defined according to the level of support you deem necessary; the latter may vary depending on the company's managerial culture and the level of seniority of the sales representatives, in particular.

Regularly analyze the indicators and adjust the system if necessary

As a leader, you are responsible for adhering to the sales strategy and achieving objectives. To do this, it is important to have a global vision of your company's sales situation in real-time so you can manage actions without waiting to know the final result of the fiscal year.

Equip yourself with the appropriate management tools, including dashboards, to analyze KPIs (key performance indicators) and monitor the actions taken by your sales representatives. This will allow you to detect necessary adjustments and implement them, if necessary.

Managing your team's sales pipeline, in particular, is a key element in ensuring reliable future revenue. The number, value and quality of the opportunities identified, their creation date and their level of progress in the sales process are all parameters to be analyzed.

Similarly, if the conversion rates of your salespeople show significant differences for the same product range, this should alert you and prompt you to investigate the cause.

Finally, sales achieved and revenue (in volume, value, by type of products/services, by customer targets, etc.) are, of course, essential performance indicators to measure.

Your sales strategy indicates how you want to structure your development. Analyzing key performance indicators allows you to validate its deployment and adjust operational action plans, without waiting to know the result in terms of orders taken or customer billing!

Adhering to these 4 key considerations will allow you to effectively manage the deployment of your sales strategy at the operational level, thereby optimizing your chances of achieving your set objectives.

Pour cela, elle doit être expliquée clairement, et traduite non seulement en objectifs chiffrés, mais également en activités et moyens concrets permettant de réaliser ces objectifs.

Voici 5 conseils pour vous assurer que votre stratégie commerciale sera pleinement appliquée sur le terrain.

Distinguez la stratégie commerciale de la stratégie globale de l’entreprise

Petit test : demandez à un dirigeant si la stratégie commerciale de son entreprise est claire pour ses équipes. Sa réponse sera sûrement un « oui » sans détours. Puis, demandez à l’un de ses commerciaux s’il sait pour quelle raison il doit réaliser 5 rendez-vous par semaine. La plupart du temps, il ne saura pas vous expliquer son objectif !

Cet écart de perception entre dirigeant et commerciaux tient souvent à un simple manque d’explication et de partage de la stratégie commerciale et du plan d’action qui en découle.

Bien sûr, il est important de présenter la stratégie globale pour donner de la perspective et relier l’action des commerciaux à la vie de l’entreprise dans son ensemble : lancement de nouveaux produits, projet de développement à l’international, objectifs de croissance… sont autant de sujets qui concernent votre équipe commerciale.

Pour autant, assurez-vous de bien la distinguer de la stratégie commerciale à proprement parler et de faire un vrai focus sur la seconde, tout en la rattachant à la première. Et surtout, faites en sorte de traiter l’ensemble des questions qui animent les commerciaux en leur donnant les éléments concrets qui leur permettront d’agir efficacement par la suite.

Faites le lien entre l’objectif de CA et les activités commerciales terrain

Pour cela, prenez le temps de faire le lien entre l’objectif de résultat commercial défini et sa traduction concrète pour les commerciaux : en objectif de résultat individuel d’abord, puis en niveau d’intensité commerciale à fournir, c’est-à-dire en nature et fréquence des activités commerciales à mettre en œuvre.

Par exemple, 1 journée par semaine consacrée à la prospection, 5 rendez-vous obtenus par journée de prospection, ou 3 rendez-vous clients réalisés par semaine…

Partagez le raisonnement qui vous a amené à fixer les objectifs commerciaux

Détaillez les étapes du processus de vente et expliquez les hypothèses qui ont été prises (nombre de leads, taux de transformation, ventes réalisés…) pour amener aux objectifs présentés. Ainsi, vous leur donnerez du sens et les points de référence.

Autre point essentiel : au-delà des chiffres et hypothèses de calcul, prenez le temps de définir les actions commerciales attendues d’un point de vue qualitatif.

Selon le contexte, par exemple, le terme générique de « rendez-vous » peut recouvrir des réalités très différentes : 30 minutes d’échange téléphonique de découverte, 1h30 d’atelier de travail en approche « vente-conseil », ou encore 45 minutes de démonstration en ligne d’une solution… Fixez les objectifs de ces actions en conséquence et définissez les compétences à mettre en œuvre pour les mener à bien.

Traduisez les « objectifs de vente produit » en « actions commerciales client »

De la même manière, n’oubliez pas de traduire les objectifs de vente par produit (généralement fixés par la Direction Marketing) en actions commerciales « orientées clients ».

C’est une chose de dire à vos commerciaux qu’ils doivent avoir vendu 10 000 exemplaires de l’un de vos produits phares dans les 6 premiers mois de l’année, ou de fixer comme objectif que l’une de vos gammes représente 40 % du CA généré… c’en est une autre d’y parvenir pour les équipes concernées.

Pour mettre toutes les chances de leur côté – et du vôtre -, assurez-vous de leur donner les moyens de réussir, en définissant le plan d’action commercial correspondant et surtout en le rattachant à ce qui fait le cœur de l’activité quotidienne de vos commerciaux : vos clients !

Définissez les cibles de clients à prospecter en priorité, décrivez leurs attentes et les points forts de votre offre au regard de ces attentes et dressez l’argumentaire commercial à développer… Bref, traduisez la « stratégie produit » en outils commerciaux opérationnels, rattachés à la réalité des clients auxquels votre équipe commerciale est confrontée.

Valorisez les moyens à la disposition de vos commerciaux pour réussir

Dans la même perspective, valorisez les ressources que vous mettez à la disposition des commerciaux pour leur permettre d’atteindre leurs objectifs : budget, temps, ressources humaines, outils…

Ces ressources peuvent être de diverses natures : achat de fichiers de prospection segmentés et qualifiés, campagnes marketing de génération de leads, nouveau site web attractif, fonctionnalités CRM performantes, session de formation de coaching commercial…

Dressez la liste de ces ressources avec deux objectifs : d’une part, les faire connaitre à vos commerciaux pour qu’ils s’en emparent activement, et d’autre part, booster leur motivation en leur montrant que l’entreprise investit pour leur donner les moyens d’atteindre les résultats visés.

Inspirez-vous des victoires de l’année précédente et capitalisez sur les réussites

Enfin, rattachez la stratégie commerciale et les objectifs des prochains mois aux victoires remportées sur l’année écoulée.

What lessons have you learned from it?
How are these leveraged in the current strategy?
How can you duplicate them or draw inspiration from them to build a scalable model from the variables observed on a certain scale?

Repartir de vos précédentes réussites commerciales est une bonne façon de faire apparaître la cohérence de votre stratégie et d’établir une continuité positive. C’est aussi un moyen de valoriser la contribution de vos commerciaux et de diffuser les bonnes pratiques en interne.

Tous ces éléments favorisent une bonne appropriation de votre stratégie commerciale par vos équipes, vous garantissant ainsi une mise en œuvre effective qui lui permettra de porter ses fruits.

To go further and learn more about targeting and building a customer file, you can also watch our webinar:

Si oui, cet article devrait vous faire changer de perspective.

Le meilleur moyen de devenir le principal instigateur de votre réussite commerciale, c’est de structurer un système commercial dont l’équilibre repose principalement sur votre stratégie et sur votre organisation, pour minimiser l’impact des aléas conjoncturels sur votre activité.

Quinze années d’accompagnement des entreprises dans le développement de leur performance commerciale nous ont permis d’identifier 6 principaux leviers pour y parvenir.

Voici lesquels, et surtout, comment les activer.

1. Définissez une stratégie commerciale porteuse et structurante

Bien souvent, les entreprises structurent progressivement leur activité commerciale au cours du temps et au gré des opportunités. Si cela peut dans certains cas porter de bons résultats, ce n’est pas gage de durabilité pour votre réussite commerciale.

Le risque à procéder ainsi, c’est de se rendre trop dépendant de la conjoncture, ou du talent individuel de vos commerciaux : quid de vos résultats, si la demande baisse brusquement sur votre marché, si un nouveau concurrent se montre ultra offensif sur les prix, ou encore, si votre meilleur commercial quitte le navire ?

En tant que dirigeant et/ou responsable commercial, votre meilleur moyen de vous préserver de ces aléas est d’ agir stratégiquement sur les variables sur lesquelles vous avez la main. En particulier, sur 2 axes :

Le type d’activités commerciales menées (génération de leads, prise de rendez-vous, découverte…)
Les ressources allouées à ces actions (temps, personnes, budget)

Une stratégie commerciale d’entreprise n’est pas le fruit de plans d’actions individuels auto-définis par ses commerciaux, c’est le contraire !

Donnez une ligne directrice claire, traduisez-la en objectifs chiffrés (nombre de leads générés, nombre de rendez-vous réalisés, nombre de ventes, proportions de nouveaux clients…) et enfin, déclinez-la en plans d’action individuelsavec vos commerciaux.

2. Développez les compétences et le niveau d’engagement de vos commerciaux

Pour atteindre vos objectifs commerciaux, recruter des vendeurs compétents est un bon point de départ, mais votre rôle ne s’arrête pas là ! Les entreprises qui réussissent le mieux sont celles qui considèrent le développement des compétences et l’amélioration continue de leurs équipes commerciales comme faisant partie intégrante de leurs responsabilités managériales.

Lorsque vous recrutez un commercial, il maîtrise généralement les techniques et méthodes de vente, mais cela n’empêche qu’il a besoin d’accompagnement sur au moins deux aspects :

La connaissance de votre offre (produits/services, gammes…) et de son positionnement spécifique (prix, cibles, identité de marque…)
L’évolution constante des modes de vente (social selling, inbound marketing, vente conseil…) et des outils utilisés (CRM, applis…)

Plus vos équipes seront formées et compétentes sur ces différents plans, plus elles seront efficaces et autonomes dans la réalisation de leurs objectifs.

Un autre élément déterminant pour votre activité dépend directement de votre mode de management : le développement de l’engagement de vos collaborateurs.

Dans ce domaine, 2 points sont particulièrement importants :

Partagez régulièrement avec votre équipe la stratégie commerciale définie
Pilotez activement et effectivement sa mise en œuvre : co-définition des plans d’action individuels, suivi des indicateurs d’atteinte des objectifs, identification des points d’amélioration…

Sur ce dernier point, évitez de vous enfermer dans une posture de « contrôle » : privilégiez une approche de type « coaching », basée sur un dialogue régulier et constructifavec vos commerciaux pour les soutenir dans la réalisation de leurs objectifs. Plus efficace qu’une évaluation périodique fondée sur la seule analyse de leurs chiffres, elle est aussi beaucoup plus favorable à leur engagement vis-à-vis de votre entreprise et à leur motivation !

3. Identifiez et déployez le processus de vente optimal

Menez une réflexion permanente sur les (meilleurs) moyens d’obtenir des contacts de clients potentiels pour votre entreprise et de convertir ces leads en ventes effectives. Identifiez et analysez les étapes successives menant à une vente, afin de définir le meilleur traitement à leur appliquer pour en améliorer l’efficacité et en faire baisser le coût.

Quelles interactions avez-vous avec vos prospects ?
A quel moment interviennent-elles ?
Quel est le meilleur moyen de rendre ces interactions commercialement contributives ?

Ces questions vous permettront de définir les moyens, outils et méthodes à mettre en œuvre et le système offrant le meilleur rendement. Notamment, quel « mix » vous adopterez entre actions marketing et commerciales, ou encore entre ressources internes et prestataires externes.

Un point qui est loin d’être anodin : sur le terrain, on observe un rapport pouvant aller de 1 à 20 entre les différentes méthodes d’acquisition de leads ! En fonction des entreprises et du mix adopté, le coût de revient du « rendez-vous 1 » (entretien commercial de découverte) varie de 20 € à 400 €, par exemple.

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

4. Créez une dynamique commerciale à l’échelle de toute l’entreprise

Assurez-vous que tous vos collaborateurs se sentent investis d’une responsabilité et d’un rôle précis dans le développement commercial de votre entreprise.

Concrètement, cela consiste d’abord à les sensibiliser au sujet en leur faisant prendre conscience de l’impact de leur travail sur le succès global de l’entreprise : par exemple, l’efficacité du service logistique a une incidence directe sur le nombre de livraisons facturées dans le mois, celle du Marketing sur le nombre de leads transmis aux commerciaux…

Puis, définissez avec les différentes composantes de l’équipe (service commercial, logistique, administratif, relation client…) les actions et moyens à mettre en œuvre pour participer efficacement à la réussite commerciale de l’entreprise.

Cela peut consister à : garantir la qualité des services délivrés, optimiser des process, diffuser une image valorisante de l’entreprise auprès de ses clients…

L’essentiel est de développer et transmettre en interne une culture de type « Everybody sells ! » (tout le monde vend). N’oubliez pas de formaliser et documenter ces engagements d’équipe (charte qualité, process interne, pitch d’entreprise, bonnes pratiques de relation client…) : cela vous permettra de les diffuser efficacement, de les « ancrer » et de les faire évoluer dans le temps .

5. Utilisez les outils digitaux qui simplifieront (réellement) la vie de vos équipes

Plus que jamais, la connaissance client est au cœur de l’effort commercial et représente un précieux capital. C’est pourquoi l’apport des outils digitaux dans ce domaine peut s’avérer déterminant pour l’efficacité globale de votre système commercial.

On pense en premier lieu aux outils CRM, qui permettent l’historisation des données relatives à vos clients et prospects, et le suivi des actions des commerciaux.

Mais il peut s’agir également d’applications dédiées à l’efficacité commerciale, telles que :

les trackeurs d’email comme Tilkee ou CloseMoreDeals qui vous informent en temps réel des ouvertures et pages lues sur vos propales envoyées par email,
les outils de génération de leads, tel que Swabbl, qui exploite les contacts des membres de votre équipe sur les réseaux sociaux,
ou encore les outils de scoring d’intérêt, comme GetQuanty, qui analyse le comportement de vos visiteurs web pour les transformer en leads qualifiés.

Il faut y ajouter les réseaux sociaux et leurs extensions dédiées à la prospection, comme LinkedIn Sales Navigator et enfin, les solutions digitales de Business Intelligence, parmi lesquelles Sparklane.

L’attention des éditeurs de ces solutions se focalise depuis quelques années sur le Marketing automation, et le suivi des interactions en ligne avec vos prospects.

La tendance actuelle est donc de migrer d’une logique originelle fondée sur la « gestion des contacts » vers une orientation « génération et qualification des leads », qui représente un enjeu majeur pour vous aujourd’hui.

6. Placez vos clients au cœur de votre réussite commerciale

Enfin, dernier levier essentiel à la solidité et à la résilience de votre système commercial : faire en sorte que vos clients deviennent vos premiers ambassadeurs !

Dans ce domaine, une question doit constamment guider vos choix stratégiques et animer vos collaborateurs : « Est-ce que l’expérience que le client est en train de vivre avec notre entreprise va l’amener à nous recommander ? ».

Inspirez-vous d’entreprises passées maîtres dans l’art de rendre leur solutions « virales », comme Trello, Uber ou Sellsy. Elles travaillent systématiquement sur la question des usages de leur solution en partant des attentes de leurs cibles et mettent tout en œuvre pour satisfaire leurs clients, et inciter ces derniers à les recommander à leur propre réseau.

Grâce à « l’effet recommandation » ainsi généré, elles facilitent considérablement le travail de leurs commerciaux : la barrière de la « confiance » et de la « légitimité » étant déjà franchie auprès de leurs prospects, ils peuvent se concentrer sur l’étape de la transformation et du closing, s’économisant au passage les parties « génération et qualification des leads » et « démonstration de l’intérêt de la solution » !Un gain de temps et d’effort commercial considérable, qui représente aussi une économie financière (on en revient à notre 3 ^ème levier… ! 🙂 ).

L’activation pleine et entière des 6 leviers que nous venons d’évoquer vous permet de rester à l’initiative et de limiter l’impact des facteurs externes sur vos résultats. Elle appelle une animation continue de la part d’un dirigeant doté d’une vision globale et prenant la pleine responsabilité de ses succès comme de ses échecs. Autrement dit, vous aurez recours à un 7^èmelevier qui sera votre « baguette magique » : le leadership commercial !

Pour aller plus loin, découvrez dans notre webinar, animé par Dominique Seguin pour apprendre à Négocier zen, les clés d’une démarche raisonnée.

Designed to integrate perfectly into your daily life as an entrepreneur and support you in your development

¹ But these are not the only commercial merits of customer loyalty for software publishers: because not only does the length of the subscription determine the level of profitability of the service, but its effect can be literally multiplied, by relying on two commercial weapons that have proven themselves: Up Selling and Cross Selling.

Sales representatives, the new champions of customer loyalty

Let's first quickly revisit the evolution of the sales role since the advent of the SaaS model. As we've seen in our previous articles, the function of salespeople has considerably evolved in recent years:

Marketing and customer service (via sponsorship operations) now provide them with the majority of leads, and even nurture them to bring them to maturity.
Above all, their role no longer stops at the point of sale of the solution, and now extends far beyond!

Extending the traditional 'sales funnel', we could now add a second, inverted funnel: that of amplifying, at the customer's end, the revenue generated by the sale of the subscription, by activating a key lever: development within the account itself.

In other words, salespeople have become the new champions of customer loyalty!

Or more precisely, the effective commercial use of the work done to ensure the solution's long-term success with the client, largely carried out by Customer Success Managers with the support of the Support team. To achieve this, they have two main tools at their disposal: Cross-Selling and Up-Selling.

Cross Selling and Up Selling : The 2 sides of the gold medal

Regardless of the sector, the business model of software vendors is now very often based on the following pricing method:

Monthly subscription cost (per user) x Number of users of the solution

For a publisher, there are therefore two levers to improve the revenue generated with a client:

1. An "Add-Ons" type of logic: adding new functionalities outside the initial scope

Then we will talk about CROSS SELLING.

For example, a ticketing software publisher can offer, beyond the "standard" ticketing administration functionalities (reservations, multi-rate management, ticket issuing, etc.), optional modules covering ancillary functionalities, such as Marketing (sending SMS or emails to customers, for example) or CRM (management and tracking of customer data).

This allows them to expand the number of potential users of their solution at their client's site, here from the reception/ticketing team to the teams: sales, marketing, and even administrative.

2. An "Upgrade" type of logic : adding options or superior functionalities within the same scope.

Then we will talk about UP SELLING.

To stay within the context of a ticketing management solution, the publisher will offer, for example, the management of pre-sales via a network of external distributors, multi-channel sales management, or the issuing of dematerialized tickets on mobile devices. In the context of a marketing emailing platform, this could involve specific functionalities (automated scenario) or simply managing a larger sending base (higher number of contacts).

This allows the publisher to increase the subscription price, and thus generate higher revenue with a constant number of users.

In the first case, it is therefore about extending the scope covered by the solution.

In the second case, it involves offering more advanced services (increasing the depth of the offer, in a way) within the current scope. In both cases, this requires the ability to offer modules or functionalities that complement those already in place.

With a strong focus on identifying strategic functionalities that will resonate with customers and open doors to new markets.

A point of vigilance, strategically: it's up to you to properly assess your ability to 'step outside' your core business and correctly meet customer requirements for less familiar functionalities! This requires defining and implementing an appropriate strategy: internalizing skills or partnering with an expert player/publisher, for example.

If this aspect is well managed, the impact of this customer capitalization on your MRR² and the resulting competitive advantage can prove decisive. More than ever, customer loyalty has therefore become a commercial function in its own right!

1: Read our article on this topic:

Define the right business model : the great challenge for software vendors !

2 : For "Monthly Recurring Revenue"

Adopt a tool tailored to your business and expectations: choose the right CRM. To better understand its usefulness and choose a suitable CRM, watch this webinar:

This is why sales representatives dedicate a lot of time and energy to them, with unfortunately very low success rates, most of the time.

So, what are the secrets to success for publishers who win their calls for tenders?

1. They maintain a privileged relationship with their Key Accounts

The primary key to success in maximizing your chances in your responses to calls for tenders is to initiate and then continuously maintain a quality relationship with your key account prospects.

If you have worked – as we hope! – on your sales model, you know who your gold, silver, and bronze clients are. And you have considered the allocation of your sales resources (distribution of working time and assignment of accounts) based on this classification, that is, by prioritizing your gold targets, then silver, and finally bronze. As a result, your sales representatives have begun to identify the key contacts within these accounts and establish lasting relationships with them.

Objective: to create and establish trust in order to gather valuable information about the internal organization and the strategic issues of the moment for the company.

Marketing can effectively support them in this task by producing « tailor-made » content to nurture a personalized relationship in a logic of « value creation » with their contacts (articles or infographics corresponding to their centers of interest, for example).

It's also a good way to stay top of mind and ensure you're 'on their radar' when they choose companies to consult for a new project!

2. They Know the 'Playing Field' of the Call for Tenders Perfectly

It is this long-term relationship of trust that allows sales representatives to work on another key point to improve their conversion rate with major accounts: account mapping. This is one of the key elements of Method ¹, and an essential point when you want to control your sales process and stop making your sales results depend mainly on the "luck" factor or uncontrolled external factors, as Caroline Jurado, CEO and founder of the start-up Linkky, points out in her testimonial about our collaboration.

Internal organization, influencers and decision-makers within the account, apparent and invisible relationships, specific or collective internal issues, priority objectives, sector constraints and market context…

These elements of detailed prospect knowledge allow you to understand their expectations (conscious or unconscious...) and target the offers that best suit them.

And also, as we will see later, to construct the discourse to which they will be most receptive.

This is a step that should not be overlooked, with one key point to keep in mind: account mapping is never static. It evolves not only over time and with internal changes, but also differs for each deal. It should therefore be reconsidered for each new call for tenders: the sales director may have been your best internal advocate when implementing a CRM solution, but may turn out to be a staunch opponent when implementing new marketing tools, if the latter calls into question the working habits of their team, for example!

3. They ensure they always stay one step ahead.

Another determining factor in any major account sale, but even more so when it takes place within the framework of a call for tenders: having privileged and priority access to information!

Since the legal framework for calls for tenders is extremely regulated, once the consultation has been launched, many constraints restrict the actions of salespeople: a single, imposed contact person, a duty of confidentiality regarding the other companies consulted and their positioning, a prohibition on directly contacting decision-makers, extreme formalism in the call for proposals and responses, etc.

In fact, the only effective way to influence the outcome of a call for tenders by refining the relevance of your commercial response is before its official publication!

Consider that if you discover the call for tenders the day you receive it in your mailbox, you already start with a serious handicap, because you have very few commercial levers to act on, and they are not the most encouraging (the price...).

Those who understand this devote a lot of attention and energy to points 1 and 2 mentioned above, especially for this reason. If a relationship of trust exists and if exchanges are regular, there is a good chance that you will hear about a consultation while it is still only at the project stage... However, it is at this moment - and only at this moment! - that you will be able to obtain key information from the various internal contacts most familiar with the file.

4. They know how to make a difference...

If you have integrated the first 3 points into your sales methods and your sales organization, then you have tools that will allow you to differentiate yourself from your competitors: you have an idea of the planned budget, the internal organizational constraints impacting the project's execution, the key stakeholders and their expectations, and the arguments of the internal project "opponents," etc.

And from then on, you are able to "play your cards" in the best possible way and determine in a relevant way: the offers and services to highlight, the type of support to offer the client, your price positioning, and more generally, your sales tactics for this deal.

Last point – and not least –:

you are able to construct the discourse that will be effective with your interlocutors.

Presenting an offer that matches the client's expectations has certainly allowed you to pass the pre-selection stage. That's good. But it's useless if you're not the best afterwards, at the oral presentation stage!

It is during this final stage, which determines the ultimate outcome of the consultation, that the sales approach, patiently developed from the beginning, becomes fully meaningful and bears fruit: the detailed knowledge of the account and its key contacts that your sales representatives have acquired over the preceding months will allow you to develop an original narrative around your solutions and to focus on the points that will resonate most with your contacts.

Knowing their personal challenges, you can even afford to turn your contacts into « allies » during your presentation by inviting them to express themselves, give their opinion, and « co-build » the choice of solution with you during your presentation.

What better way to make them want to work with you than to involve them in choosing options and getting them to envision the rest of the project with you?

In any case, this is an approach that has enabled many of our clients to significantly improve their conversion rates and the amount of business won!

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

It's high time for you now to take action and translate this great strategy into effective field practices to achieve your goals.

Don't know where to start? KESTIO guides you with the 5 key questions you need to ask yourself at this stage.

1. What will be your marketing and sales mix?

The distribution of roles between marketing and sales is an issue to be addressed carefully and well in advance: with the development of SaaS offerings and the increasing digitalization of sales methods (Inbound Marketing, Social Selling, Sales Automation, etc.), the share of resources allocated to marketing is constantly increasing (the 1 to 2 ratio between marketing and sales is reversing).

It is absolutely necessary to have a clear vision of the stages of your sales funnel and to differentiate between those that fall under marketing and those that fall under the action of your sales representatives.

2. Should You Prioritize Inside Sales Representatives or Field Sales Representatives?

This is an essential aspect of your sales organization, and it depends primarily on the nature of your offer and its distribution method.

If you sell perpetual licenses with maintenance subscriptions, you will most likely opt for a partner network capable of managing the installation and follow-up. And in this case, you will mainly need field sales representatives to meet them, supported.

And in many cases, you will have to manage the cohabitation of these 2 models and determine all the more precisely the account allocation criteria and the allocation of sales forces that results between your inside and field sales representatives.

3. What skills should your sales representatives master?

It is also useful to ask yourself about the skills that your sales representatives will need to master. In direct connection with the first two points mentioned, but also depending on the profile of your customers, you will thus determine the sales methods, techniques and tools to implement.

According to the latest EY-Syntech study, the two main clients of software publishers in France today are the banking and industrial sectors. If this is your case, your sales representatives must be well-versed in "Key Account" sales methods, such as the Chessboard Method, and complex sales.

The public sector ranks 3^rd in this classification. If it is one of your priority targets, your sales team should focus on mastering the tender process and the associated sales techniques.

In a predominantly digital sales model, the role of salespeople is very different: with qualified contacts identified and nurtured upstream by marketing, "Inside Sales" essentially has the role of refining the qualification of needs, guiding the client in the choice of options, creating ambassadors for the solution within the client's organization, or even mapping out the decision-making powers.

Customer loyalty is also becoming increasingly important. We are also seeing the emergence of new sales roles, such as Customer Success Managers (CSMs), who are responsible for ensuring the quality of the Customer Experience.

In any case, a consultative sales approach – based on demonstrating the ROI of your solutions – is beneficial in your sector to showcase the value you bring.

These are all elements to keep in mind when implementing an HR plan (recruitment, training plan, etc.) in line with your business strategy.

4. Are you planning to expand your sales internationally?

Another key consideration for organizing your sales force is the proportion of revenue generated internationally and the strategic importance of international clients to your company.

While French publishers still generate a very large majority of their sales domestically², the share of overall revenue generated outside of France continues to increase, particularly driven by SMEs and start-ups resolutely focused on international markets from their inception, such as Criteo or Allegorithmic, for example.

A point that significantly impacts the sales organization to adopt for these companies: once the strategic geographic areas have been identified, you can determine whether your dedicated sales force operates from within France or directly on-site. Consider all the resulting factors: whether or not to establish a physical, relocated branch, the country's social and commercial legislation, and the opportunity to favor an English-speaking 'master version' of your solutions over a French-speaking one.

And from the point of view of your sales organization stricto sensu: adapting your promise and sales arguments into several languages and according to local cultures, the need to homogenize sales processes, sharing information between potential subsidiaries, deploying a CRM internationally, implementing cross-border management and steering...

5. What will your performance indicators be?

The last crucial point for your sales organization: its management, and therefore the monitoring and analysis of results. Indeed, the choice of key performance indicators and their analysis determine:

- The effectiveness of managing your sales activity
- Calculating the compensation of your sales representatives (a sensitive subject, to say the least!).
- The type of sales management adopted

And therefore, more generally: achieving the objectives that you have set for yourself! The current evolution of sales methods is reflected in the choice of KPIs present in the reporting.

Today, the 5 main indicators tracked by software vendors are:

1. The distribution of revenue by type of sales: licenses, SaaS subscriptions, or support/maintenance (on average today, almost 1/3 for each!)
2. New orders recorded: the « booking »
3. The evolution of monthly recurring revenue, or MRR
4. The revenue per country
5. The « churn rate » or attrition rate (contract non-renewal rate)

It is noted that two of them (MRR and churn rate) are directly correlated to the development of SaaS. In this new model, reducing and maintaining churn between 0 and 1% becomes a goal to achieve in order to ensure the profitability of the system as a whole.

Considering that customer acquisition costs are 5 to 25 times higher (depending on the sector) than the cost of customer retention... this indeed encourages paying particular attention to customer loyalty and the commercial levers that support it!

Booking remains essential, as evidenced by the choice of this criterion as the basis for calculating variable compensation for sales representatives by 34% of software vendors (compared to 26% for revenue generated).

Addressing these 5 key questions will allow you to define the best sales organization with regard to your objectives and the strategy defined upstream. And to have a clear vision on how you will manage it and ensure its effectiveness over time!

Identifying the different stages that lead to a sale and defining the best internal organization to achieve it raises many questions. It's never a simple matter... And it's even less so for software vendors, whose economic and commercial model is currently being questioned as never before.

From "On Premise" to "SaaS": after the technological leap, take the plunge at the commercial level

Defining a company's business model is like designing a car's engine: if you neglect this step, you can provide it with all the fuel in the world afterward, but it is unlikely to move forward or win races!

In other words, to place your solution at the top of the « EY-Syntech top 250 » and before recruiting an army of salespeople ready to fight, make sure you know what they will have to do, and in what order!

An objective that is by no means insignificant in the specific context of software publishers...

While the advent of the Cloud was initially seen as a technological challenge with a strong business impact (developing or migrating solutions to SaaS mode), this was not its only impact.

The progressive shift from the "On-Premise" model (based on license sales, often accompanied by a maintenance service subscription) to the "SaaS" model (on a monthly subscription basis) has profoundly disrupted the economics of companies in the sector.

The impact on their cash flow has been enormous: where previously they could count on significant cash inflows from the sale and then rely on a long-term "annuity" through maintenance and updates, they now have to wait 3 to 4 years for a SaaS solution sold on subscription to achieve a turnover equivalent to that of its "On Premise" version!

The time it takes to make a solution profitable on the market is not the same as before! Especially since you also have to cover the R&D costs of this transition.

A new economic model has therefore been established. However, publishers have not always fully grasped the evolution that this also implies at the commercial level... Yet, in this area too, making the shift represents a real challenge.

What is the best sales organization for a software vendor today?

Of course, not all publishers are equal in terms of integrating the Cloud into their offering and their maturity on the subject of commercial transition that accompanies it. It is difficult to compare the situation of new "born in the cloud" entrants who rely heavily on their technological advantage with that of established players who have embraced the transition along the way...

What is certain is that even if 'On Premise' still largely dominates today (in terms of the overall turnover generated by the sector in France), the trend towards switching to SaaS is significant and irreversible.

And you don't sell a subscription to a SaaS solution in the same way as a licensed software: the characteristics (technical, usage, etc.) of the product sold are not the same, and neither are the sales arguments. The pricing structures are completely different. The priority is gradually shifting from acquisition to customer loyalty. And online demos are changing the relationship with the buyer.

The digitization of sales methods has gone hand in hand with that of the offer, and it does not only affect the world of software publishers.¹We have gradually witnessed the emergence of business models in which (Inbound) Marketing and Sales Automation occupy a prominent place. But paradoxically, publishers are not necessarily the most advanced on the subject... The famous syndrome of the "cobbler's children have no shoes"!

With few exceptions (pure Cloud players), the transition is gradual and the mixed model (both on the solutions sold and on the sales methods themselves) is even constantly evolving. With all the risks and uncertainties that this entails...

Software vendors, therefore, face the need to rethink their business model on a case-by-case basis. To do this, they need to answer many questions, including:

- On which offers should we focus the most commercial effort (SaaS, Licenses, Maintenance, etc.)?

Defining priority customer targets, in particular, is a point to which it is useful to devote a lot of attention. Contrary to the intuitive approach that one might have in the first place (assigning "Gold" status to customers who have generated the largest sales revenue to date), a methodical and structured approach aims to cross-reference several criteria (company size, revenue generated, projects detected, etc.) in order to determine the development potential that each customer represents for you, the probability that you have of selling your products and services to them in the future. And to establish the ranking of your targets based on this criterion.

Taking some time to define a typology of clients as "Gold, Silver, and Bronze" will subsequently save you a great deal of efficiency in sales prospecting, improve the conversion rate of pursued deals, and therefore, ultimately, in generated revenue... At the same time, this work will form the basis of a clear and coherent distribution of the portfolio of prospects and clients among your various sales representatives.

This fundamental process must be structured and methodical to ensure the right choices are made. Ideally, these choices should be tested with iterative feedback between practical application and decision-making.

C’est ce que la solution KESTIO Live vous propose : une approche complète sur l’ensemble des axes de réflexion, une méthodologie structurée pour éviter les « trous dans la raquette » et un accompagnement dans la durée pour mettre en œuvre la stratégie définie et la faire évoluer au plus près de vos besoins et objectifs.

Once this definition work has been carried out, setting up an effective sales organization becomes much more obvious (this is what you will discover in our next article). And your car can start the race with the best chances!

To go further and learn more about the concept of social selling, and the various communication tools, you can watch this webinar:

Ce contexte encourageant s’accompagne néanmoins d’importants défis à relever pour les éditeurs français de logiciels, tant dans le domaine technique que d’un point de vue RH ou commercial.

C’est particulièrement vrai pour les start-ups et PME du secteur, dont la réalité diffère sensiblement de celle des grands acteurs historiques.

1. Tirer parti de la croissance actuelle face aux leaders du secteur

L’édition de logiciels connaît une croissance significative et confirmée ces dernières années, de l’ordre de 10% par an et jusqu’à 16,5 % en 2017, sous l’effet conjugué de tendances qui tirent le marché : cloud computing, mobilité, gestion de l’expérience client, Big Data et sécurité du SI en tête.²

Cette bonne nouvelle pour l’ensemble des acteurs du secteur ne doit cependant pas masquer une autre réalité, qui est l’extrême concentration de ce marché : 7% des éditeurs représentent à eux seuls 70% du CA global généré.

Dès lors, tirer le meilleur parti de ces nouvelles parts de marché à prendre est un enjeu majeur pour les start-ups et PME du secteur.

2. Se développer à l’international

Autre tendance clé du secteur : les Français passent à l’attaque et s’internationalisent ! Avec une différence considérable en fonction de la taille de l’entreprise, cependant : si les grands éditeurs comme Dassault Systèmes et Ubisoft sont résolument tournés vers l’international – avec respectivement 91 % et 92 % de leur chiffre d’affaires à l’étranger -, il n’en va pas de même pour les start-ups et PME du secteur dont 75 à 83 % du CA reste encore réalisé en France.

Cependant, plus du tiers des éditeurs de l’hexagone est déjà implanté aux États-Unis et la part croissante de chiffre d’affaires global du secteur réalisé hors de France s’explique aussi par l’émergence de start-ups tournées dès leur création vers l’international.

Les perspectives de développement considérables offertes par l’internationalisation incitent donc les PME du secteur à envisager un déploiement au-delà de nos frontières.

3. Recruter et fidéliser les meilleurs développeurs

La croissance du secteur s’accompagne de la création de nombreux emplois, notamment sur le volet R&D. La maîtrise du savoir-faire et la dimension stratégique de l’innovation sont primordiales pour les éditeurs, et les entreprises se confrontent aujourd’hui à une véritable « pénurie » de talents sur ces postes clés, qu’elles choisissent majoritairement de conserver en France.

Il s’agit donc non seulement de repérer et d’attirer les meilleurs développeurs, mais également de les fidéliser, en leur proposant des perspectives motivantes à court, moyens et long terme, notamment par le biais de la rémunération, de l’intéressement et de l’entrée au capital.

D’où la nécessité encore plus grande de développer un projet d’entreprise offrant des perspectives de développement attrayantes et sécurisantes !

4. Financer les investissements R&D

Si elle fait partie de l’ADN des éditeurs de logiciels, l’innovation reste une gageure économique pour les entreprises les plus jeunes et/ou dont le CA annuel ne dépasse pas 10 millions d’euros : elle nécessite d’investir massivement dans la R&D, non seulement lors de la phase de pré-commercialisation, mais aussi durant toute la phase d’exploitation commerciale des solutions.

Or, le financement de l’innovation reste encore majoritairement internalisé (auto financement ou endettement), ce qui impacte directement la rentabilité des éditeurs de logiciels. L’engouement des marchés pour le secteur reste en effet timide en France, malgré l’existence d’outils dédiés (FCPI, PEA PME…), et les programmes de recherche Européens semblent complexes et inaccessibles pour les PME. Les crédits d’impôts (CIR et CII) et l’accès simplifié aux marchés publics demeurent donc les mesures publiques plébiscitées par les éditeurs.

Une problématique financière que les dirigeants du secteur doivent intégrer dans leur vision stratégique en favorisant les contrats assurant un apport important de trésorerie.

5. Affiner leur modèle économique et commercial

Le secteur est également traversé depuis plusieurs années par une tendance de fond : la disparition progressive du modèle des logiciels On-Premise au profit des solutions SaaS.

87% des éditeurs de logiciels proposent désormais tout ou une partie de leur offre en mode Saas.

Depuis 2010, la part du CA global des éditeurs de logiciels issue de l’activité SaaS n’a cessé d’augmenter, atteignant 32 % en 2016. Aujourd’hui, les éditeurs de logiciels français font le choix de se concentrer sur cette activité, quelle que soit leur taille, mais c’est particulièrement vrai pour les start-ups.³

Une transformation technologique importante (adaptation et développement de services pour le web, hébergement sécurisé des solutions et des données…) qui pose aussi question sur le plan commercial : le passage du modèle sous licence perpétuelle à une logique d’abonnement à durée déterminée modifie en profondeur les modes de vente.

Cette évolution induit des process commerciaux au sein desquels le marketing prend une nouvelle place, déterminante.

Dans ce contexte, il est incontournable pour vous, dirigeant de PME du secteur, de :

- Mettre en place une organisation commerciale performante
- Piloter efficacement vos équipes commerciales, en France comme à l’international
- Identifier et prospecter efficacement vos comptes clés
- Intégrer pleinement la dimension marketing dans vos process de vente

Autant de défis qui viennent s’ajouter à vos nombreuses préoccupations stratégiques (évolutions technologiques, financement de l’innovation, recrutements, vision et développement de l’entreprise …) et qui vous semblent parfois éloignés de vos savoir-faire principaux et de votre « zone de confort ».

Raison de plus pour ne pas les négliger et pour vous faire épauler sur ces sujets, qui sont déterminants pour le succès actuel et futur de votre entreprise !

Nous sommes là pour vous y aider : c’est la vocation de KESTIO Live et l’objectif de la série d’ articles à venir, à paraître chaque semaine sur ce blog !

To discover more about using specialized and adapted tools to adopt, check out this webinar on optimizing the performance of your commercial asset:

In other words: I can easily picture my company and my offer, so my prospects can too! That's possible, but not certain: therefore, I should make sure I am visible and not just assume it.

To do this, there are 6 key points to respect.

1- Plan, anticipate, forecast

Increasing my visibility to clients requires strategic thinking to determine the most effective actions, allocate resources, and organize efforts. It's important to lead these actions rather than be controlled by them.

To properly answer questions during this phase, I need to know my prospects well, specifically where they are, how they gather information, and what type of information they need.

2- Act online and offline

To effectively increase my visibility to prospects, I choose online and offline actions. Regarding digital strategies, this involves identifying visited sites, main types of searches, variables based on age, social networks, the existence of blogs and influencers (especially in BtoC markets), etc.

Regarding the physical world, I identify events such as trade shows, conferences, traditional media, professional networks, etc.

The next step is a combination of the available and most suitable options to be visible. There are really no good or bad choices in absolute terms: what matters is aligning actions with the strategy, the marketing and sales plan: participating in a trade show or a round table, hosting a conference, being active and interacting on sites visited by prospects, producing articles...

3- Adapt my speech

The perception of what I say varies depending on the medium. Therefore, I will not communicate the same thing or in the same way if I am hosting a conference or posting content on Instagram.

Therefore, I need to adapt my approach. But be careful: adapting does not mean changing. The editorial and identity markers must remain present. Adapting my message also means positioning the volume slider in the right place, in other words, ensuring the message is sufficiently audible (quantity and quality of messages).

4- Consistent actions to increase their impact

Imagine a trade show in November, with a booth and a presentation on a topic likely to interest target prospects. To increase impact and visibility, I plan an action before the show on available media to prepare the ground. But I also work during and after the event to develop awareness.

Thus, I benefit from the online/offline leverage effect: an Internet user may want to come and see the stand at the show for a real exchange, or a prospect who has attended the conference may want to contact you afterwards via the site.

5- Don't forget traditional materials

The digitalization of the economy tends to make people forget about traditional media. However, they remain very effective if integrated into an overall system: local or professional press, billboards, flyers... are media that should be used tactically.

In connection with the trade show mentioned in the previous point, I can, for example, arrange to have articles on the topic covered before and after the event, plan an advertising insert in a professional publication, etc.

6- Temporality

Develop my visibility and a regular action, strategic and tactical, which, theoretically, never stops.

Firstly, because there are always new prospects to make myself known to, and secondly, to not leave the field entirely open to competitors.

Ce qui va me permettre d’être véritablement visible par les prospects, c’est donc la rémanence, la persistance, c’est la répétition. Pour Fabien Comtet, CEO chez Kestio, « la maison n’est jamais rangée définitivement, autrement dit : il faut prévoir d’être toujours actif pour être efficace ».

The deployment over time ultimately allows you to become ingrained in people's minds and be seen as one of the key service providers. Thus, if a prospect attends a particular trade show, reads a specific magazine, and visits a certain website, I need to be present on all three platforms regularly, because the goal is not only to be visible, but to be visible in the long term.

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

Some questions...

Is it the client who brings in the most revenue, or the one with the most potential?

Is it the profile you address most often, or a segment of clients you would like to strategically develop?

Is it the client who brings you a lot of business or the one with the highest margin?

Is it the most loyal client, or the one who negotiates your rates the least?

Is it the client with the best reputation or the one who recommends you the most?

Behind these options lies the question of strategy and tactics, and their projection into the future. The definition of the ideal client does not exist definitively; it corresponds to a specific objective at a given moment.

In other words, defining the ideal client requires a multi-level and dynamic analysis over time.

The ideal client: a strategic perspective.

Depending on the current strategy and the objective pursued, the value of each client will vary based on their potential to meet this objective. We recently supported an SME that was looking to strengthen its position in its market and was in a conquest mode, which defined a specific ideal client, different from the one corresponding to a loyalty strategy, for example. Does the company want to develop its offer on a new market? Develop a new offer? On a new segment?… As we can see, before talking about the ideal client, it is necessary to specify the strategy.

To best define your strategic positioning, it is necessary, first, to consider the company's strengths in each of the potential market segments: its expertise, its brand image, its product range, the quality of its commercial relationship, its ability to control prices, deadlines, the adequacy of the sales force... In a second step, it is necessary to cross-reference with attractiveness criteria for each of the identified segments (opportunities, constraints, potential turnover, profitability, intensity of competition, etc.) to finally be able to specify the tactical approach.

The ideal client: a tactical approach.

Strategy is the overall plan, tactics are adapting to the situation. Thus, once the target segment is identified, and the prospect/client portfolio is established, finer segmentation can be carried out to help you organize actions.

L’approche que nous appelons chez Kestio le « Sales Model » permet, au sein d’un segment stratégique, de préciser des segments « tactiques » en fonction de la « valeur » des comptes cibles.

The ideal client, or more precisely the client value, is the result of a complex formula, based on variables specific to the company, its activity, its market, and its current ambition, which allows for better prioritization of accounts, and therefore to define and manage the allocation of marketing and sales efforts in the best possible conditions.

From clients that sales representatives need to visit at least twice a month to clients for whom we will simply manage the relationship remotely, a scale is put in place according to customer value, to treat the entire market with the level of investment required to obtain an ROI.

Chez Kestio Live, nous avons donc tendance à parler non pas du client idéal, mais bien DES clients idéaux !

To go further and learn more about targeting and building a customer file, you can also watch our webinar:

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

Les utilisateurs de cette solution définissent les thématiques et planifient les campagnes de questions auprès de leurs collaborateurs. Une manière simple et agile pour récolter des indicateurs de performances, aider à la décision en termes de management et de gestion.

Créée en juin 2016 la startup comprend 5 collaborateurs et voit son CA doubler chaque mois. Une levée de fonds est en cours.

Caroline Jurado, CEO et fondatrice, a connu Kestio Live lors d’une conférence sur les processus de vente complexes. Ciblant principalement les grandes organisations, elle a pris conscience qu’il lui fallait monter en compétences commerciales pour aller chercher d’autres clients que les early adopters.

Kestio : Quels éléments vous ont fait prendre conscience de l’apport potentiel de méthodes commerciales ?

Caroline Jurado : Linkky commercialise son offre principalement auprès de grands groupes, donc sur des comptes complexes qui réclament des processus élaborés. Je souhaitais que l’entreprise devienne performante d’un point de vue commercial. En fait je me suis rendue compte que les contrats que nous signions étaient de toutes manière gagnés d’avance et qu’en revanche nous buttions dès qu’il y avait une difficulté. J’avais besoin de comprendre nos prospects, leur démarche, leurs enjeux, comment ils fonctionnaient. En fait, l’activité commerciale ne se résume pas à du feeling et une aisance orale. Il y a beaucoup plus de techniques et de méthodes que ce qu’on imagine.

Kestio : Comment s’est mis en place la mission ?

Caroline Jurado : Nous avons démarré très fort, à raison d’une heure par semaine pendant 3 mois. La priorité a porté sur les comptes en cours qui traînaient et que je n’arrivais pas à conclure. Très vite, j’ai pu les rattraper ! Ce qui a bien fonctionné c’est vraiment la dimension opérationnelle. Nous avons immédiatement abordé des questions concrètes, des cas pratiques, très loin des théories vues en salles. Ensuite nous avons abordé la Méthode de l’Echiquier, qui est une approche très pragmatique, avec une méthode qui structure. Nous travaillons sur un scoring d’opportunités qui mixe les points clés par décisionnaires, les enjeux.

Ce principe permet de classer les prospects et de valider la qualité des qualifications avant de décider où et comment orienter nos actions.

Kestio : Comment s’est instaurée la relation avec la consultante ?

Caroline Jurado : Laurence ne fait pas à ma place ; elle m’aide à réfléchir, elle me donne les clés. La méthode est très bien rodée et adaptée aux petites structures comme Linkky. Au lieu de passer une journée en salle avec une surcharge d’informations, nous passons une heure par semaine sur mes interrogations du moment. Ce mode d’organisation permet de digérer les apprentissages et de les mettre en pratique. J’ai depuis recruté une commerciale et nous pouvons partir sur une base commune ; j’ai pu la former, lui expliquer la méthode, les difficultés etc.

Kestio : Les entretiens à distance sont donc efficaces ?

Caroline Jurado : Absolument. Je n’ai d’ailleurs pas rencontré Laurence physiquement. La visio apporte un gain de temps et des économies sans être préjudiciable à l’efficacité. De mon point de vue il n’y a aucune perte au niveau qualité.

Kestio : Et maintenant ?

Caroline Jurado : Nous arrivons à la fin des trois premiers mois. Comme nous avons progressé très rapidement sur la performance commerciale, je vais poursuive à raison de 2 séances par mois et alterner avec d’autres thématiques comme notre stratégie inbound.

Merci pour ce témoignage !

Intéressé(e) par notre plateforme KESTIO LIVE ?

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Explanations

A good approach is sequenced in 4 stages:

Attract
Convert
Sell
Build loyalty

Attracting: The message, or rather the content that will be distributed, must be adapted not to the sender's offer (i.e., a self-centered view – "we make the most beautiful plastic molds") but to the current topics of prospects and customers (i.e., a view turned towards external problems – "plastic molds are revolutionizing the market").

The challenge for the Inbound strategy is to find the right content for the right target at the right time in their decision cycle.

Converting: To do this, through its publications, it is necessary to be identified as one of the solutions to address the prospect's problem. It's about making them want to go further in relation to the proposed result (and not the solution) and encouraging the user to act by means of a "call to action" for example (download a White Paper, subscribe to a newsletter,...).

The challenge for the Inbound strategy is to find the right setting for the conversion stage: the website must allow you to collect information about the visitor to continue the interaction, nurture the prospect, and make them want to go further.

Selling: At this stage, we finally have the right to talk about our offer and present our solution! It must be demonstrated that it responds perfectly and better than others to the needs, and according to the way the customer wishes to treat them.

The challenge for the Inbound strategy remains to provide leads that are sufficiently qualified and identified as "ready", and to ensure immediate commercial handling for the transformation.

Building Loyalty: We can build on previous work by transforming customers into advocates, maintaining the relational link, and identifying other needs.

The challenge for the Inbound strategy is to capitalize on acquired customers and create a kind of echo chamber to amplify the distribution of your own content. However, be careful: the race for likes and shares is not an end in itself; the challenge remains to be heard by your target audience!

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

Key elements to being truly effective:

To be as visible as possible, especially when the client needs it, increase the actions that bring in audience: SEO, social networks, recommendations, etc.
The idea is to be identified as an interesting and useful source of information, which allows you to create an enriching relationship and become attractive.

Question your content in relation to your targets. It is better to start from their issues, their problems, their ambitions. It is also according to the stage they are in (becoming aware of a symptom, looking for a solution, selecting a product or service, etc.) that the content must be adapted. To reinforce your positioning, nothing prevents you from relaying related information: a regulatory change, a trade show, a technological innovation, etc. Ask yourself about the format, to be adapted according to the target and the stage. The formats available are numerous today and technology facilitates implementation: articles, case studies, videos, infographics, white papers, configurators, eBooks, templates, webinars, slideshares...

Treat content as a company asset and respect the 5 steps to work on it properly:

Plan (the communication plan: for whom, which stage, which channel, which format)
Build (the content).
Distribute (choose channels, social networks, etc.)
Analyze (results, test content, titles, colors, etc.)
Repeat what works well, and reuse content in multiple adapted formats.

Finally, structure the approach within the company: this is an important process for revenue growth, a complex approach that is continuously improved and cannot be done spontaneously and on an ad hoc basis. It is therefore necessary to mobilize internal and external resources so that the dynamic remains active and produces results.

Content production, making your brand a media, that is to say a relevant resource capable of aggregating prospects and generating leads, clearly consists of changing the way of doing things. It's giving yourself the opportunity to do business with contacts who a priori want to. As we can see, this approach must be able to mobilize widely internally, around marketing, sales and communication to be really effective.

The webinar is an Inbound Marketing tool that has become essential today: through its audience and content, it generates numerous leads. Find out how in this webinar:

Want to learn more?

Continue to follow us as we expand our content on this topic, and if you have specific requests, you can contact us directly.
Discover our article “Inbound Marketing: What if you became interesting instead of interested?“

Kestio Live est la première plateforme d’expertises qui fournit des outils pour accompagner les dirigeants des PME et des startups sur leurs enjeux commerciaux et marketing.

Il s’agit d’un moyen très pertinent pour les dirigeants d’acquérir toutes les informations pour structurer et moderniser le processus et mieux faire du business. La performance commerciale demande aujourd’hui une maîtrise parfaite de tous les ingrédients tout au long de la chaîne pour obtenir des résultats au niveau attendu et avec des coûts optimisés. En effet, les clients ont changé et sont de plus en plus réticents aux démarches commerciales traditionnelles.

Kestio regroupe toutes les expertises (anciens Directeurs commerciaux, Marketing, coachs, consultants CRM, Web, Digital) et la solution digitalisée pour venir en aide aux dirigeants des PME et accélérer leur croissance.

*BFM Business est la 1ère chaîne française d’information économique et financière en continu, avec des conseils pour vos finances par des personnalités de référence dans le domaine de l’économie, des interviews exclusives de patrons, de politiques et d’experts. Rendez-vous sur le canal 46 de la TV SFR et en replay sur bfmbusiness.com.

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

" It's not enough to be talented to be a salesperson »

Arnaud Guérin and Renaud Allioux, co-founders of Earthcube © Earthcube

EarthCube is a startup created in 2016. It develops satellite monitoring services for factories, pipelines and other industrial sites, both for malicious acts and natural accidents.

The Toulouse-based company has a staff of 15 employees, including 3 sales representatives.

It has just concluded a fundraising of 3 million euros to support the commercial development of its solutions for automating and improving the processing and analysis of satellite images.

Arnaud Guerin, un des deux fondateurs et CEO de la startup, contacte Kestio Live sur recommandation afin d’optimiser toute la démarche commerciale.

Kestio : Comment avez-vous démarré la collaboration avec Kestio ?

Arnaud Guérin: In our sector, with a technical and innovative offer, the sales process is very complex, with upstream and downstream phases that require excellent preparation. We quickly understood that we needed to review our sales management and that our sales process needed to be organized and structured to meet the demands of our market. But also, we had neither the skills nor the internal resources to carry out this project successfully. To be immediately effective and not « learn on the job », we therefore chose to seek external expertise. Furthermore, we also wanted specific training on certain very specific steps such as information gathering, mapping key players, etc.

Kestio : Quelle était votre problématique du point de vue développement commercial ?

Arnaud Guérin : Pour la mise en route et construire un premier socle commun de connaissances nous avons travaillé via des cessions de 2 à 3 heures en présentiel, resserrées dans le temps, avec l’ensemble de l’équipe commerciale. Nous avons notamment abordé le sujet du customer discovery et adopté la Méthode de l’Echiquier, particulièrement adaptée aux process de ventes complexes et qui permet notamment d’améliorer le taux de transformation en portant les efforts là où existe le potentiel. Pour nous, l’apport a été fondamental : nous n’avions pas de culture de la vente à proprement parler et nous nous sommes rendu compte qu’il ne suffisait pas d’être talentueux pour exercer ce métier mais qu’au contraire il s’appuyait sur de vraies compétences techniques, sur de la méthode. Kestio Live nous a apporté théorie et pratique, mais c’est aussi le suivi régulier qui permet l’ancrage de la stratégie commerciale, le changement des habitudes.

Kestio : Par rapport à vos objectifs initiaux la formule répond-elle à vos attentes ?

Arnaud Guérin : Kestio permet de rester dans le cadre, de ne pas perdre le fil. Le principe de rendez-vous téléphoniques ou en visio-conférence fait que les sujets abordés sont toujours actifs, et ainsi la progression est constante. Contrairement à ce qui peut se passer dans le cas des formations en salle qui mobilisent de grandes plages horaires et où les sujets abordés se diluent rapidement dans le quotidien sitôt revenu au bureau, nous constatons que la dynamique d’apprentissage reste opérationnelle. Et la formule est très souple : le créneau est utilisé par un des trois commerciaux selon les besoins, voire par deux.

Kestio : Plus sûrement que des gros blocs de formation ?

Arnaud Guérin : Oui, et nous allons maintenir cette tension positive pour notre performance commerciale. Progressivement nous devenons plus autonomes mais à force de descendre dans le pipe nous découvrons aussi de nouvelles problématiques. Et notre actualité joue aussi sur les thèmes abordés. Des questions comme « comment se préparer pour un salon ? » ou « comment répondre à un client qui demande un mois gratuit ? » émergent régulièrement et nous les abordons directement avec Kestio. On se retrouve au fil du temps avec une boîte à outils qui nous permet de gagner en productivité. Un de nos enjeux aujourd’hui est de disposer d’une plate-forme commune afin que chacun puisse se mettre à jour au fur et à mesure de son arrivée dans l’entreprise.

Thank you for your testimonial!

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

Kestio intervient dans ce contexte.

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

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

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

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

Kestio : Et vous ne vous êtes pas arrêtés là !

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

Kestio : Vous recherchiez une forme de coaching…

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

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

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

Kestio : Pourquoi avoir choisi Kestio ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving from needs to commercial development challenges

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

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

How to solicit feedback from your clients?

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

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

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

Learn to manage customer relationships!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KESTIO: How did you hear about KESTIO?

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

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

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

KESTIO: What KESTIO system did you propose?

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

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

KESTIO: How did she react?

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

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

KESTIO: Where are you today?

Marc Brua:

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

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

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

Thank you for your testimonial!

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Discover the keys to evolving your CONSULTATIVE SELLING approach:

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

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

The spirit of competition, a state of mind

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

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

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

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

Every competitor relies on a strategy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To advance in sales practices and enter the Digital Age:

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

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

Have you clearly established your sales strategy?

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

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

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

How is the commercial action plan defined in your company?

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

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

What if it came from you? Honestly?

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

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

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

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

How is customer information structured to enhance performance?

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

Finally, do you have effective support?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring a unique point of view and convictions

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

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

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

Provide value

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In order to effectively meet the strong ambition of international development of his start-up Wisembly, Andrei Vestemeanu – partner and co-founder – called on KESTIO to train his team of 10 sales representatives and optimize his sales organization in order to improve his conversion rates.

Feedback on the results of this approach.

1- The initial objective: from sales team training to sales organization optimization

A. Vestemeanu: Wisembly is a start-up that publishes a collaborative solution for preparing and facilitating meetings allowing companies that use it to increase productivity by making their meetings more efficient and engaging through digital tools. Founded 6 years ago, the company now has over 600 clients across 5 continents and works with 80% of companies listed on the CAC 40. It already has around forty employees and 2 offices in Paris and London.

“Initially, I contacted KESTIO to train our sales representatives in complex sales methods, with the idea of giving them a common foundation and a consistent way of operating within the team.”

During our discussions, we quickly realized that beyond this question, it would also be beneficial to work on the "sales organization" aspect prior to this training action to have an optimal impact on our results.

On the subject of opportunity conversion, for example, a diagnosis conducted by the consultant allowed us to observe a transformation rate of 20% (between the number of discoveries and the number of signatures). This means that 80% of commercial time was previously spent losing!

2- The main stages of the support: diagnosis, optimization of the sales organization, training and coaching of salespeople

The KESTIO consultant (Dominique SEGUIN, editor's note) first carried out our "Sales Diag" : he conducted interviews or had questionnaires completed by all the members of the team concerned (Associate Directors, sales representatives, Marketing and HR managers), to learn about our organization and analyze it against a grid of pre-established criteria.

“The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of our current sales organization and identify the priority areas for improvement.”

This allowed him to formulate a number of concrete recommendations, which were presented to us during a feedback meeting. The areas for improvement identified included, for example, the segmentation of our client portfolio into "gold, silver, and bronze" clients based on their potential.

Based on this, in particular, we were then able to define the right "commercial intensity" (in frequency, time, and resources) to allocate to our clients, the right "mix" between physical, telephone, and video meetings (to reduce travel time) based on a better analysis of the stakes of each commercial meeting.

Based on this initial analysis, we then organized 2 workshop-style work meetings between the 3 Associate Directors and the Sales Director to precisely define the outlines of the target organization towards which we are evolving in our sales management.

About a month after this work, we implemented the sales training:

- 2 days of training in the Chessboard Method© for the 10 sales representatives, in the presence of the 3 partners
- Then there are individual coaching sessions (remote, for salespeople based in London), at a rate of one 1-hour session per month for each salesperson.

These sessions allow everyone to consult with the advisor based on their needs. They can focus on a particular deal to receive support in investigating the account or review the fundamentals of the method.

The Sales Director is present during the coaching sessions. After the sessions, we systematically conduct a global debrief involving the Sales Director, the consultant, and myself.

This allows us to share insights on management support and areas of focus adopted after the coaching session to continue supporting the sales representative between sessions and reinforcing skills.

3- Results produced: better allocation of sales resources, increased sales team productivity, and optimized conversion rates.

During the Sales Diag, we observed that the contact strategy was essentially based on physical appointments. However, in the age of multi-channel, it is possible to develop more efficient and less costly strategies. We therefore started to carry out the discovery phase by telephone.

“By transferring this activity to a telephone channel, we have doubled the number of weekly contacts with the same resource scope, which is the equivalent in productivity to 6 additional sales representatives without any extra costs!”

Furthermore, to meet the goal of improving conversion rates, we developed a GO/NO GO grid with the help of KESTIO. Combined with the implementation of complex sales training (Chessboard Method), this now allows us to more quickly identify opportunities that will not succeed because they do not meet the necessary conditions.

“This time, previously wasted on poorly qualified opportunities, has been transferred to prospecting and more in-depth work dedicated to opportunities with a higher probability of success, to further optimize our chances of winning these deals.”

From a more general point of view, we have clarified and refined the segmentation of our client portfolio, and we now have a common nomenclature for everyone to discuss deals: this streamlines exchanges, promotes dialogue, and mutual understanding. We function better as a team.

Individually, the initial level of understanding varies from person to person, which is why individual support is essential. We regularly need to revisit the basics of the method.

Regarding sales organization, we are now able to best allocate available resources based on the priorities that have been defined. This will be particularly useful for acquiring new clients and continuing our international development!

To delve deeper into the topic of sales performance:

KESTIO is a company specializing in services and solutions for improving Customer Performance. For over 10 years, we have been helping companies secure and sustainably increase their revenue by acting on all the levers that allow them to acquire and retain their customers.

Other articles from our blog that may interest you:

If you regularly follow this blog, you know that our managers and consultants publish business-oriented advice and best practice articles for young start-up leaders on the excellent online media Les Echos START: (re)-discover our previous 2 articles “Start-ups: 5 tips inspired by (good) salespeople to sell your project” and “4 key steps to (sell) yourself on social networks”. Here is the third article in our series, proposed by Fabien COMTET – founder and director of KESTIO, to support start-ups during the – sometimes critical – phase of commercial growth.

Is your startup's sales activity starting to reach a significant business volume and experiencing very rapid growth in your sales performance? This is very good news, and the moment when your greatest dreams finally come true! It's also, paradoxically, a critical moment that can be fatal in some cases: when the commercial stakes become higher, the internal organization through its sales management is directly impacted, and the need to structure your sales development quickly becomes apparent. Where until now, a fairly "instinctive" sales approach and the opportunistic activation of the individual networks of the founding members may have been sufficient, it is now necessary to think of a more sustainable model that can be "duplicated" for the new arrivals that the team will certainly welcome...

Don't panic, a takeoff is always good news, and this phase can be very well managed with a little anticipation and by following these few tips:

1 – Identify your sales success stories

Using success stories, which have enabled the startup to develop, is a good starting point for structuring its sales efforts.

2 – Involve all employees in creating a profile of the ideal customer

In moving from the status of a human-scale startup to that of a larger and more structured company, it is possible that the first employees no longer fully recognize themselves in the new way of operating. Involving them actively is necessary, so as not to see certain key members leave.

3 – Define the right sales “method” and identify what's missing

The right sales method should emerge from experiences lived internally and can then be compared to external best practices. In that order. Not the reverse.

4 – Equip yourself with the right tools for each stage

When a startup becomes a larger company, the reflex is often to turn to dedicated (and costly) customer relationship management software. Mistake! There are now many free or nearly free tools available, and it is not essential to start immediately with very complex solutions.

Read the full article « Help, my start-up is taking off! Keys to a successful business expansion» on Les ECHOS Start website.

You can find out your level of commercial momentum with our tool, SCORE 7. Take the test for free in one click on the link below:

Other articles related to this topic published on our blog:

1-Could you briefly introduce your business and your clients?

We help brands grow by activating their consumers, turning them into true « brand ambassadors », in order to benefit from this incredible power of recommendation and generate in fine more deals.

The community that we lead contributes to promoting these products in various ways: for example, by making suggestions for improvement to the brand, by posting customer reviews on the internet, or by simply making these products known around them through simple word-of-mouth.

Our motto: "Who better to talk about a product than a satisfied customer?"

We advocate a 'real-life' marketing approach (as opposed to mass advertising), where success is based on the quality of the products and their alignment with customer expectations.

Our clients include major FMCG brands (Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Unilever, Nivea, Coca Cola...), High Tech (Samsung, HTC, Sony...) and small appliances (Braun, Bosch, Philips, IRobot...).

I am in charge of defining and implementing the sales strategy on the French market with our clients, partners, and specifiers.

2- Why did you call on KESTIO, and with what objectives regarding lead conversion?

The training and support project with KESTIO originated from an analysis of our sales cycle: like any sales manager, I initially asked myself 'how to increase the conversion rate of our sales team' to win more deals.

I then focused on the different stages of our sales cycle and our conversion funnel (targeting, prospecting, conversion, etc.) to identify areas for improvement at each stage and positively impact our sales performance.

Based on this analysis, I initially contacted KESTIO to implement a training program focused on the closing stage. However, through discussions with Dominique SEGUIN, which took place within a global support approach, the reflection broadened and took a different direction.

I had expressed an objective like: 'go from 10 conversions for 100 prospects to 20 conversions for 100 prospects'. You led me to consider things from a new angle by expressing this objective differently: 'go from 10 conversions for 100 prospects to 20 deals won by only working on 60 prospects'.

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

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

Together, with the KESTIO consultant, we designed the training and support system and defined the pace for the training sessions and coaching follow-up.

In practice, we first implemented 3 fairly intensive training days. We scheduled them over about a month and a half, in order to allow some time between sessions to allow for an initial application of the principles discussed.

This time has proven useful for integrating the concepts taught, as some of them are quite disruptive and really require changing one's approach, radically shifting one's posture, especially in one's relationship with clients, and therefore questioning so-called 'acquired' knowledge or habits.

I had warned my sales representatives about the rather 'disruptive' aspect of the Method in order to prepare them to welcome this change favorably. This point really contributed to the success of the training, I think : the sales representatives immediately got involved in a very voluntary way in the process and really changed their practices and applied the method, immediately after the training.

Secondly, the implementation of "coaching" and monitoring sessions – at a rate of 1.5 hours per month for each salesperson for 3 months – has helped to embed these new practices.

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

4- What results did this training produce? Did it help you achieve your lead conversion goals?

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

Already, the attitude of our sales representatives and the way they support our customers have considerably evolved, which is very promising.

The new concepts discovered in training have become so obvious that you sometimes wonder how you could have done things differently before!

Today, for example, all salespeople practice note-taking in 'verbatim' mode during their sales meetings, and we exchange information based on richer and more objective data.

The vocabulary of sales representatives has changed: the use of common concepts not only helps them individually in how they handle deals, but also makes their interactions smoother.

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

Much like in dating, you also need to know how to 'play hard to get'! Don't systematically trigger a meeting or send a proposal; the desire needs to be genuine and shared.

Sales representatives manage their schedules differently; it's no longer about the "appointment marathon," and, above all, they approach these appointments with a different mindset.

As a result, we have optimized the sales cycle and are truly focused on the customers who really need it, to support them in their decision cycle.

In terms of management, the method also has an impact on the monitoring and management style of sales representatives: during my monthly "business reviews" with each sales representative, I use new monitoring points, shared with all sales representatives and comparable from one deal to another.

The « scoring sheet » allows you to gauge the level of qualification of an opportunity in an objective and structured way, it forces you to remain attentive to the points of vigilance inherent in the method: have we identified all the decision-makers, the budget, the decision timeline, etc.?

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

This new sales approach aligns perfectly with our strategic goals for the coming months: to stand out in an increasingly competitive market, increase the value of our support to our clients and prospects, and continue to optimize our sales cycle.

To go further, discover your company's sales and marketing performance score:

Also, discover our webinars that may interest you:

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

In a turbulent market – that of radio advertising – which has been structurally declining year after year for almost 10 years, the Lagardère Publicité group (Europe 1, Elle, Gulli, etc.) has made the strategic choice to move from selling advertising space to designing increasingly diversified global offers, tailored to the needs of their clients. This is a very strategic evolution of its business model, which is beginning to bear fruit, but also represents a small revolution for the group's sales teams; the latter must develop specific, specialized skills in 'complex sales' to convince major account clients whose decision cycles are long and involve numerous stakeholders: decision-makers, internal and/or intermediary influencers (media, advertising, or event agencies), etc.! And move from a product/brand orientation to a questioning approach oriented towards 'client issues'!

Franck GODIN, Radio Sales Director at Lagardère Publicité, at the head of a team of around twenty sales representatives in charge of the group's 3 emblematic stations (Europe 1, Virgin Radio and RFM), discusses the system implemented with KESTIO to develop the skills of his sales teams. A system subsequently extended to more than 100 sales representatives from the Lagardère group.

1. What triggered your decision to implement sales training?

Franck Godin: Initially, the objective was primarily to acquire new clients: after a complicated period and in a market context that has been quite tense for the media in general for 10 years, we wanted to return to growth and conquest in our market, and we did not hesitate to review our business model for this.

It's not easy, considering that the radio sector – although less affected than the print media and billboards by the difficulties linked to the massive arrival of digital technology on the advertising market – has been experiencing a structural decline in its revenues for several years.

We have more than 500 customers. The renewal rate of our customers is around a third per year on the advertising space purchases, and almost double on the "special operations" (which include an event component, editor's note). The stakes are therefore high.

Our strategy must also guarantee our margins to increase profitability: this relies, among other things, on the development of new integrated offers, based on the very rich possibilities offered by our different media brands. We are constantly creating new solutions, in collaboration with different internal teams and according to the needs of our clients.

The job of a salesperson in our field has therefore evolved considerably in recent years: from sellers of advertising space, salespeople have become sellers of global solutions around a media brand.

We called on KESTIO to support the development of our teams' skills and the implementation of this new way of doing business: we are now dealing with much more complex sales, so we had to build a different sales model.

2. How Did the Collaboration with KESTIO Go? What Training Program Was Implemented?

F.G.: Initially, KESTIO intervened at Lagardère to lead a sales seminar for 45 people (the 20 sales representatives from the radio team, plus the creative and marketing teams).

Subsequently, a 2-day training session on the Chessboard Method was initiated with the team of 20 radio sales representatives, to set the stage and provide the fundamentals of the method.

This was followed by support in the form of individual coaching for a period of one year, at a rate of 2 hours per month, conducted by 4 KESTIO consultants.

Such sales support represents a significant investment, so we started with the seminar as a first step before moving on to the training courses afterward.

Ultimately, the project grew significantly: we presented KESTIO solutions to the human resources department, and the training was extended to all Lagardère Publicité sales staff (press, digital, and TV), totaling around one hundred employees.

3. What objectives have you set for yourself with this training activity?

F.G.: The initial objective was simply to increase the sales representatives' ability to acquire new business.

Next, we moved towards the idea of strengthening the coverage of the « good contacts » by our sales teams, that is, to be able to address not only the Communications Director, our traditional contact, but also other players involved in the decision or prescribers (for example, the CSR manager on an event project related to the environment) and of course all the intermediaries in the chain: media, creative, advertising agencies, etc.

On certain deals, we have up to 4 intermediaries or service providers involved, in addition to our client, each giving their opinion on the final purchase decision!

Beyond the number of clients, we also wanted to increase the share of "special operations" in our turnover (the differentiating operations for our clients, but also the event-driven operations).

All this requires developing an in-depth knowledge of our customers, moving closer to them, and gathering information about their organization and their business challenges.

It's easier said than done, KESTIO's intervention helped us progress and embed these practices thanks to a very individualized approach for each employee.

4. Are you already seeing results from these actions? What are the main benefits?

F.G.: First of all, we measured a real awareness on the part of the sales teams. Initially, the training seemed quite confusing to them.

A salesperson even confided in me after the first training module that they felt like they had to "learn to walk again." The image is powerful, but there was a real phase of destabilization.

Once this was over, the sales representatives naturally began to apply the method. Today, they have a much better understanding of our customers and their needs.

We apply the method to our clients and to the intermediaries already mentioned, with the result that the rate of completion is increasing on the famous complex systems (special operations), because we know how to adapt and be responsive with all the stakeholders in the decision chain.

This improved understanding of our clients' challenges, combined with the diversification of our offerings, also allows us to convince new advertisers.

We are more effective in overall sales strategy: we are fortunate to have a wide range of offers, so it's up to us to find the solution that fits our clients, based on our deep understanding of their challenges.

From a managerial standpoint, the training has also shifted our practices: individual coaching-style sessions based on questioning have been established and systematized between managers and their team members. These individual sessions perfectly complement team meetings.

The involvement of managers in the process is essential to support this transformation of sales practices. It should be integrated as much as possible upstream.

5. What's next? What are the main challenges you face?

F.G.: We now have a strong focus on sustaining the results of these actions: after having passed a milestone with regard to special operations on the group's three stations (Europe 1, Virgin Radio, RFM), the aim is now to confirm this result over time.

Our main challenge is also to integrate digital more into our media recommendations. We need to convince our clients to use the digital levers integrated into radio systems in their operations.

We still have one step to take to systematize the use of digital tools, and the possibilities are real, for example with a site like Europe1.fr, which is consulted by more than 5 million people per month, on which we can imagine rich and innovative content.

Finally, we also need to convince clients to repeat operations from one year to the next, and have a real support strategy. We are in a profession where clients are highly solicited, we must continue to work on the notion of client effort, by developing our listening skills through open questions, by precisely identifying the contacts, and by being able to approach them intelligently, in short, by having a more systematic approach based on the methods that KESTIO has taught us.

To achieve this, sales teams will continue the process with an increasingly "customer-centric" approach.

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To delve deeper into the evolution of commercial practices in the digital age, download our white paper:

Traditional outreach methods (such as 'cold' calling) are facing increasingly diminishing returns. Digital channels (especially social media) can help counterbalance this trend and boost the entire sales process, provided you effectively integrate this new component into your sales process. So, should you choose between traditional methods and digital techniques? And how can you best leverage the latter to generate leads?

Here are some answers based on our operational expertise and feedback from our clients.

Sales process: traditional methods are no longer sufficient

Have you developed sales techniques internally? Do you have "recipes" for generating leads that are known to the sales team and deliver satisfactory results? Excellent. So why not stick to these methods? Because they are no longer enough. They are no longer sufficient to convince your contacts, who have become better educated in sales techniques and are sometimes resistant to "marketing" designed to generate mass demand. These classic techniques are sometimes no longer sufficient to meet contact and sales objectives, or, when they do, they involve high costs and a significant time investment.

- The number of appointments obtained through phone calls is steadily declining. The ever-decreasing costs of telecommunications for businesses, and the proliferation of prospecting services, generate a flood of calls that we all often try to avoid. In addition, the information used for these calls is poorly tracked and very short-term oriented.
- The way buyers operate has evolved. The internet has become a preliminary or parallel step to any 'real-world' interaction. People gather information on blogs and official websites, and 'Google' a whole host of things. Ignoring this new step in the customer journey is doomed to failure.
- Companies with a clear distinction between the marketing department, which generates leads, and a salesperson who exploits and converts these leads, lack an overall vision. Interaction strategies must be considered as early as possible to bear fruit and provide quality leads. We must move beyond a simple view of the salesperson who is 'fed' by marketing. They must become involved from the pre-sales stage.

So-called classic sales methods should not be abandoned. Simply be aware that they are no longer sufficient to achieve results objectives or even to stand out in an increasingly competitive environment. To improve the financial efficiency of prospecting, and rediscover that little extra that makes the difference, you need to integrate digital technology and consider new customer behaviors. This effort to digitalize the sales process will initiate a transition towards a more radical change that is inevitable in the long term. Don't see digital as a constraint or as your enemy! Classic and digital methods are complementary. The new methods are an evolution of the classic methods; the entire profession does not need to be reinvented. On the other hand, work needs to be done on the substance so that the focus is no longer solely on the brand and its products, but rather on the benefits provided to the customer.

Initiate a "commercial digitalization" process: essential steps in the journey

Revamping sales processes, touching them, and evolving them by injecting a bit of digital (website that encourages contact requests, white papers, mobile application, etc.) is the most difficult part. This digitization has a fundamental effect on how tasks are performed, and thus permanently changes certain processes.

Let's take an example: if you embark on a process of better lead qualification, and you decide to use predictive analysis, it will be easy to implement the tools that enable these changes. However, it will be much more difficult to change the way your employees use this data and integrate it into their daily tasks.

So you need a roadmap. A shift in mindset internally should allow priorities to change: everyone needs to get involved and think about customer benefits and the real expectations of consumers. How do you launch this transformation? Through change management support and gradual implementation, according to the characteristics of your company.

- Start with a clear definition of lead segmentation, criteria, and the scoring process, as well as scenarios and conversion funnels to qualify these leads and deliver them to the sales team at the right time (maturity, progress in the purchasing decision-making process);
- Define key performance indicators (KPIs) for better monitoring of these different stages. Take care of the internal processes of tracking, storing, and using contact data. This is a raw material not to be neglected, and you must ensure its quality.
- Define lead assignment procedures and "transmission" to salespeople according to criteria specific to your business.

However, digitizing sales processes is not limited to defining procedures and operating diagrams. It also requires integrating a "marketing" approach upstream (i.e., pre-sales) and involving sales representatives. They must be present at all stages. They have knowledge of the products and customers, as well as a concrete vision of the needs. They must be involved in defining the themes and "content" intended to attract and engage leads. This represents a real shift in paradigm and way of working for them.

Support should be offered to them in this context (training, very educational explanation sessions, group work between departments) to facilitate adaptation. It is necessary to communicate more than usual to explain the changes in progress and their purpose. Comprehensive support is needed, which mobilizes the various internal stakeholders, in the service of commercial efficiency and the customer experience... digitized!

We can see that lead development strategies via interactions on social networks or websites gradually bring a future customer closer to the company in prospecting. This approach does not conflict with the traditional approach of making appointments by telephone or canvassing in the field. Salespeople must be an integral part of the digitalization process and the addition of new tools that do not break their profession but, on the contrary, help them to reclaim it. Digital technology makes it possible more than ever to maintain conversion with its prospect over time, to build a relationship over time and to adapt to all expectations, whether the interlocutor is already mature or in the discovery phase. A 'better' way of working and winning orders that you must explain to your salespeople to win their support.

And for you, which areas of work can improve your sales performance?

Get a free analysis of your company's marketing and sales performance by clicking on the following link:

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.

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

(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

It seemed natural to share this perspective with our own readers!

What role does CRM play in your customer approach?

Dominique Seguin: CRM is an essential tool for customer relations. Today, you wouldn't imagine working without a smartphone, email, or other tools that save us all time! CRM, an application for managing customer relationships, offers much more than the technical and daunting image that salespeople have of it: you can manage your follow-ups, analyze your figures, send emails, store your customer data for other company departments, and evaluate your sales performance.

Sales representatives don't like CRMs because they feel they have to re-enter their workdays to fill out tables that no one really reads. Like any tool, it has its constraints, let's be realistic, but we observe among our clients that no experienced sales representative still risks managing their opportunities on Excel, their follow-ups on a notepad, their forecast on a blank sheet. The challenge of ownership by the teams is therefore particularly strong, and this requires a genuine perception of the associated benefits!

The topic isn't new (we even conducted and published a study in 2012 entitled: "Salespeople and CRM, why so much hate?"), but it remains relevant.

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

In this digital age, how do you interest a prospect on the phone without appearing intrusive?

Dominique Seguin: The rules don't change! If we are interesting, people will be interested! Otherwise, they tell us in a very simple way: "I'm not interested."

How to interest our prospects? By talking to them about THEIR concerns. Either we have found material available on the web and it will serve as a hook, or we bring up one or two topics specific to the targeted market and we see if it bites.

Don't set incredible expectations regarding the rates of calls converted into appointments: the average is less than 10%. But if you prepare well with an adapted pitch, you can double your performance.

What importance do you give to social media today to increase sales?

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

50% of the purchasing process is completed without the involvement of a salesperson. Digital presence has become the primary competitor in this field.

How can you expect to be more relevant and demonstrative than a 2-minute 3D YouTube video that highlights all the product's features with pleasant music, precisely when you need it? You need to create value elsewhere!

Be even more distinctive in understanding the client's challenges (stop asking them what they want, ask them why they want it!), emphasize the cost of the current situation and the observed dysfunction, and finally, remain present in their mind after leaving their office.

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

Previously, the brochure served this role, but now you can showcase your journey, expertise, and current news with modern and interactive tools.

In other words, you can influence and highlight your recommendations. In short, if the brochure is ending, the salesperson 2.0 is just beginning, making the job even more sharp and exciting!

Beyond the tools, what enables a salesperson to become a top performer?

Dominique Seguin: Method, method, and method! Beyond the commercial “talent”, often considered innate, it is method that truly makes the difference. In sales, as in any profession, method is key.

Do you think a baker wonders every night how to make good bread? No, every night he follows a proven recipe. 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 have the right smile at the right moment, or the right formula, or the right product…

The bait matters less than the trap itself! It's a bit harsh as a mantra, but it's so true. The trap is the sales techniques repeated every day to constantly improve the gesture.

Very good salespeople, well-versed in these principles, sometimes fail during the negotiation phases... Why is this and how can it be avoided?

Dominique Seguin: The main pitfall comes from the lack of preparation. Difficult training, easy war! Most salespeople prepare by applying the handbrake. This is guaranteed failure and the good old recourse to the weakness of the salesperson, the price reduction begged from their manager.

You see the good salespeople in the turns, not in the straight lines. Negotiation has nothing to do with selling. 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 beginning of the negotiation, each initially focused on protecting their own.

The challenge is to move away from this perspective and focus on finding a new configuration. Otherwise, we're just keeping score, and the customer often wins that game!

Let's shift the established frame of reference. The real issue that matters to a client is not winning the negotiation, but benefiting as quickly as possible from the advantages provided by the desired solution that justified the purchase approach, to resolve the identified problem (expensive machine, slow service, inefficient process, etc.).

You have been a Sales Performance consultant at KESTIO for almost three years, what is your assessment of these years?

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

I can say that my best decision after 6 months was to start from scratch to learn a new profession, a profession where you start by thinking before acting, where you study before deciding.

A profession that consists of helping our clients approach their challenges differently because our time is not theirs, and that is the value we bring to them.

An operational person does not need a consultant to ensure daily execution; they know very well how to do it and are experts in their field. We will never know as much as our clients, their teams, their culture, their history, their own clients...

The consultant provides the ability to simplify complexity, to be a witness to best practices across all sectors, to identify what causes failure, dysfunction, to find the balance to calmly address blockages, to change employee practices through genuine long-term support without the pressure of figures.

We help our clients free up space in their daily lives, to better prepare for the future and enable their teams to overcome challenges and continue to lead the way in their markets.

My operational background is very useful because I understand my clients' lives. I know their doubts, their desire to succeed, the incredible energy they put in every day to achieve their goals with their teams. Often, we provide the small trigger that makes everything move...

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

What is your favorite mobile app?

Dominique Seguin: I love Pocket because as an infovore, I like to consume content constantly. Between newsletters, monitoring, blogs, news sites, how to find an application that easily and intuitively groups all my reading lists? Pocket does it very well, I can't live without it anymore.

KESTIO supports companies (from SMEs to large corporations) in acquiring and retaining their customers through a dual expertise in Commercial Performance and Customer Experience.

A recent study published by the American firm Forrester predicts the imminent demise of field sales representatives in the face of e-commerce. However, a different outcome is possible for B2B field sales representatives, provided they revise their positioning to adopt a consulting stance, particularly through the quality of their questioning and a more "customer-centric" approach.

What are the other components of the consultative salesperson's approach, and how can you adopt them? That's what we'll see in this second part.

Position yourself as an expert

While listening is key to creating the conditions for a trusting relationship, it is also important to demonstrate your added value.

In companies, formalizing a project is very often delicate and complex. Even if they are increasingly informed and autonomous, customers therefore expect their sales representatives to have in-depth expertise that will enable them to refine the outlines of their project.

Buyers want salespeople who can challenge them: analyze a situation, conduct a diagnosis, and model the data collected. This will allow them to formalize and synthesize the guiding ideas of their project, and thus help them to "sell" it internally.

The sales consultant should be seen as an expert whose opinion the client values. However, be careful not to confuse "opinion" with "solution proposal"… That would again be trying to sell something!

The expert salesperson must express and stand by their convictions on a given subject, and encourage their counterpart to react in turn. They must be able to deliver a point of view and develop it, not to convince but to provide factual insight into their client's concerns.

The value provided by the salesperson is also measured by an approach oriented towards "profitability."

All companies operate with a focus on return on investment. The consulting salesperson is there to help their client realize their idea, so they must provide indicators to measure the effectiveness and profitability of their solution, the famous ROI.

Consequently, the client is no longer focused on the cost of the solution but on the financial gain or savings it will enable them to achieve.

Leverage the restatement of the client's challenges.

Finally, the consulting salesperson demonstrates their value by their ability to integrate and restate the issues and concerns of their interlocutor.

Reformulation helps avoid misunderstandings: if something important has escaped the salesperson, their interlocutor will have the opportunity to clarify it without feeling attacked. On the other hand, a well-mastered reformulation demonstrates professionalism and leads the interlocutor in the desired direction. Finally, reformulating the stakes will give rise to new questions that will allow the introduction of new ideas, suggestions, or proposals.

By bringing together all the mentioned components (quality of questioning, provision of expertise, demonstration of the value of the solution, rephrasing of the client's challenges, etc.), the sales consultant creates the conditions for a collaborative and partnership mindset.

Register as a partner

The advisory approach requires acting like a consultant, and adopting a caring attitude towards your client to help them define their need, advance their project, and make it a reality.

Within a company, the project leader has every interest in being supported by an external consultant to help them "sell" their idea internally and convince the forces involved and concerned.

Therefore, you need to associate yourself with their project's success, and offer to act as a conductor with the various teams, making them understand – tactfully – that the sales team and the client share the same interest: the progress of the project.

Identify decision-makers.

During this pre-sales / sales phase, the challenge for the sales representative is also to identify the decision-makers and then gather their vision on the ongoing discussion. This step will allow them to remove any potential obstacles, give meaning to the approach, generate buy-in, and begin to engage all individuals towards a decision. Of course, they will keep their primary contact informed of the progress of their interactions to strengthen the relationship of trust.

The sales consultant may suggest "working sessions," "co-creation workshops," or a "summary meeting to understand the issues."

These meeting formats demonstrate much more effectiveness and impact than the classic "presentation meetings", "discovery meetings" and other "proposal submissions", which remain the panacea of all-terrain sales representatives.

However, clients sometimes reject this approach. It's important to analyze the real reasons for such a refusal. Often, this type of resistance indicates a lack of desire to collaborate. This raises the question of whether or not to continue discussions with the client. In other words: Go / No Go?

A 'No Go' will avoid wasting time and commercial energy on a deal that has little chance of succeeding, allowing you to focus on more promising projects.

In summary…!

The advisory approach is based above all on the salesperson's ability to disregard their need to sell in order to focus solely on listening and advising.

Thus approached, the act of selling becomes an act of non-selling.

And this paradigm shift is not insignificant! Positioning oneself as an expert cannot be improvised or decreed. Salespeople wishing to adopt a consulting approach must cultivate and develop additional relational skills, which have now become essential to gain a client's trust, including mastering their discourse, behavior, rhetoric, and the art of questioning and responding.

With that said, we wish you ~~Very good sales~~ Apologies, excellent advice… ; )

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

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:

– The Chessboard Method© – Key account sales and complex sales
– The KESTIO System© sales training modules – Sales effectiveness and dialogue tools
– The DISC Method© – Behavioral analysis for sales representatives and managers

" Is the « species » of the field salesperson irrevocably destined for extinction? Or does it have a chance to adapt to survive? KESTIO provides you here with some keys to emerge victorious from the natural selection process! "

Buyer Power!

According to the Forrester report¹, the change in customer purchasing practices and behaviors largely explains this disruption.

These individuals now have very powerful tools at their disposal that eliminate the need for a sales representative to deliver a presentation brochure: websites, social networks, comparison sites, e-commerce platforms. This is much less expensive and more effective than a meeting.

The generalization of these tools has accentuated the autonomy of customers and buyers. As a result, the perception of the value of the sales profession seems to have never been so undermined.

However, meeting with a salesperson remains necessary, but for different reasons and at different stages of the purchasing and decision-making process: to be supported in their thinking and helped in defining a need or a project, to understand this or that specificity of a solution, to negotiate, and finally, to benefit from advice.

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

How to transform (or mutate?) into the 'BtoB salesperson of the future'? This is what we are going to explain in this 2-episode saga...

The salesperson, an inveterate egocentric?

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

The salesperson encounters the same obstacle. By focusing too much on their product and sale, they miss their real objective: gaining the client's trust. To achieve this, they must concentrate on one area: the quality of the interaction with their contact.

However, many factors affect a salesperson's state of mind when starting a relationship: anxiety about not meeting targets on time, the conscious or unconscious obsession with making a sale.

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

The salesperson must mentally forget about closing and focus solely on initiating a quality relationship based primarily on trust. The Consulting approach involves adopting a mindset resolutely focused on the client's interests.

Let's stop thinking egocentrically, let's be "customer centric"!

The advisory approach: the science of listening and the art of questioning

Most of the time, people are inclined to talk about themselves and like to discuss their profession. Customers and buyers have the same desire. So, we must take an interest in them. Showing interest in the person, focusing on the quality of the relationship, showing empathy... all this leads your interlocutor to open up.

But is simply listening to a client enough to uncover all their secrets, meaning their needs and projects? Does one suddenly become a client's confidant overnight?

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

By definition, a client doesn't have a problem. On the other hand, a client – a company – may have an ambition, wish to develop a program, want to optimize its resources, strengthen its growth, or launch a new product…

And in the face of such objectives, the client does not necessarily have fixed ideas about the levers at their disposal.

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

The essence of the advisory posture lies in the quality of questioning and the ability to build on the information gathered to broaden the scope and deepen the subjects. The consulting salesperson must be focused solely on researching and understanding their client's challenges. The art of questioning is to make their interlocutor aware of their need, often expressed implicitly, and to formalize it into an explicit need.

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

The advisory approach also involves putting oneself in the customer's shoes. The salesperson must immerse themselves in the discussion as with a friend, in a disinterested manner. They must assume that they have nothing to sell, they are simply there to listen and understand.

For the client, these questions of understanding are all signs of interest that strengthen their confidence and position the salesperson as an ally, not an adversary.

Listening and the art of questioning are very powerful psychological levers that allow you to discover client issues that are much broader than just the immediate need.

However, these are not the only components of a 'consultative approach'. To achieve the 'status' of a consultative salesperson and prove your value to your clients, you will need to develop and accumulate other skills (providing specialized expertise, a ROI-oriented approach, rephrasing client issues, and identifying decision-makers). We will reveal them in the article: the selling salesperson is dead, long live the consulting salesperson, episode 2!

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

¹External resources:

-> L’article de forrester.com n’est plus disponible, 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:

Le concept :

un entrepreneur (engagé), un problème, une communauté connectée prête à l’aider.

L'ambition :

fournir aux entrepreneurs du social business les mêmes outils ultra-modernes que les start-ups de la Sillicon Valley ou d’ailleurs!

La méthode :

des « hold-ups » (séances de brainstorming) organisés les samedis dans les locaux de MakeSense à Paris Bastille.

Et en pratique :

une quinzaine de « gangsters » (des ingénieurs, des entrepreneurs, des étudiants en école de commerce) se réunissent bénévolement autour d’un créateur de start-up à impact social positif (reconvertir les SDF en guides touristiques, implanter des centrales électriques dans des petits villages d’Afrique, lancer le premier téléphone pour sourds ou une application mobile pour trouver des actions de bénévolat autour de soi en temps réel…). Ce dernier leur soumet un problème précis, puis se fait la malle avec leurs idées !

C’est dans le cadre d’une de ces journées de travail collaboratif que Dominique SEGUIN intervient bénévolement et anime un workshop destiné à aider 15 créateurs de start-ups engagées à trouver leurs premiers clients (notamment en B2B et auprès de Grands Comptes).

Une façon pour KESTIO d’affirmer une nouvelle fois de façon concrète ses valeurs, dans la logique de ce qui avait déjà été mis en place à travers l’accompagnement par Fabien COMTET de la start-up lyonnaise Chantiers-Passerelles, qui agit en faveur du développement de peines alternatives à la prison et de l’insertion des anciens détenus.

En savoir plus sur MakeSense
En savoir plus sur Chantiers-Passerelles

General, Financial, IT, Sales/Marketing, Purchasing, Production/Maintenance Managements, and many quality partners will be at the show to share their experiences and allow you to be even more efficient in your organizations.

There, you will discover the latest trends in management software, through numerous customer testimonials, thematic workshops and conferences, all gathered under the theme of 'the company's influence on society'.

From lead generation to sales conversion:

The lead, understood as an identified contact with a potential (purchase) project, more or less well qualified, is at the heart of the relationship between the sales and marketing teams.

The Marketing Department is responsible for generating leads, i.e. implementing programs and actions to acquire leads: website animation, multi-channel campaigns.

The Sales Department is responsible for processing the identified leads to transform them, i.e. finalize the qualification and make the sale.

The two teams must work together to be effective. However, we often see them in opposition rather than cooperation... Why?

In this workshop, KESTIO will analyze the underlying causes that may explain this situation and provide you with concrete keys to improve the efficiency of the lead generation and transformation chain, through simple rules, examples of best practices, and experience feedback.

Mais que recouvre vraiment ce nouveau champ d’actions ? Parle-t-on de contenu, de canaux de vente, de relation client, de communication ?

La sphère du digital combine en effet des éléments de nature très différente qui portent chacun de nouvelles potentialités de développement de business en agissant sur les différents leviers de la performance.

On pourra par exemple :

- recruter de nouveaux clients pour un coût-contact moins élevé (et piloter le ROI),

- entretenir une relation client avec valeur ajoutée, via une interaction souple,
- orienter une offre spécifique vers une cible précise,
- laisser les utilisateurs s’approprier le produit, le personnaliser,
- sécuriser une innovation en les interrogeant pendant le process de développement,
- écouter les clients en temps réel, à chaud comme à froid,
- communiquer de façon ciblée, rapide, efficace.

Il apparaît clairement qu’une stratégie digitale dépasse largement un simple plan de communication et relève bien globalement de la stratégie marketing : mettre un pied dans le digital requiert donc de solides compétences amont en marketing, en stratégie et en commercial. Les technologies du web ne sont que des outils nouveaux, pour mener à bien ces missions. Si elles font évoluer les métiers du marketing et du commercial, elles ne les remettent pas en cause, bien au contraire. Elles complexifient les process, multiplient les outils, permettent d’accéder à de nouvelles informations, mais restent des moyens d’analyse et d’actions au service d’une approche plus rapide, ciblée et directe du client.

Plonger dans ce nouvel univers numérique, qui apporte de nouveaux débouchés, oblige donc à faire évoluer vos connaissances et vos pratiques, et à définir une stratégie globale qui combine 4 métiers :

marketing : quel ciblage, quel positionnement, quel contenu pour la marque, l’offre ?
commercial : quel plan de prospection, de fidélisation ?
de communication digitale : quel média pour quelle cible avec quel message ?
SI : quels supports techniques, avec quel dimensionnement et quelles interfaces ?

C’est à ce niveau que KESTIO intervient. Nous accompagnons nos clients sur l’élaboration de leur stratégie digitale avec comme priorité de rester vigilants sur l’homogénéité et la pertinence de l’ensemble (efficacité des outils, des messages, des indicateurs,…), sur les objectifs et sur l’appropriation par les équipes.

Le webinar est un outil digital, devenu aujourd’hui essentiel: par son audience et son contenu il permet de générer de nombreux leads. Découvrez comment, dans ce webinar:

In this article, we offer some tips to better understand your customers through digital channels, and we will address the other tasks in subsequent articles.

Digital tools (a website, an application, a newsletter, etc.) allow you to track the many actions your customers take while using them. However, it's important to distinguish between actions that you can track in a general way and those that you can associate with a user, whether anonymous or identified.

Overall information comes from tracking software that you have linked to your digital tools. These must be configured correctly if you want relevant data. You will then have behavioral and social indicators on your users: how much time they spend on your tools, where they come from (site or geolocation), which pages are most viewed, or the actions they perform most often, etc.

This information can be used to improve your tools, but also to help you guide certain strategic or operational decisions.

Anonymous information is linked to the use of « cookies » placed by tools on your customers' devices. The latest European directives strictly regulate their use. These cookies can be used to understand what visitors do on your tools and adapt your offer to their browsing.

This knowledge is personalized, anonymous, and immediate and serves to improve your tools in real-time. It can be analyzed a posteriori like global information in tracking software.

You can collect information on identified customers. For example, they may have created an account on your site, have a loyalty card in your network of stores, or connect with their profile from a social network. It is important to quickly set up a unique customer repository and aggregate the information in your CRM tool. This will allow you to better segment and understand your customers and have a global view of your multi-channel potential.

Of course, this data can be combined, and overall navigation data can be linked to an identified contact and integrated into your CRM or a Business Intelligence solution if it makes sense for your business.

Si vous souhaitez structurer votre collecte d’information et améliorer votre connaissance client, les experts Kestio peuvent vous aider, donc n’hésitez plus pour nous contacter.

The objective of such a survey is twofold:

- Gathering the perception and impacts of the crisis on companies
- Assess the ability of companies to respond "on the ground" to the impact of the crisis on Customer Relations issues:

– Relationship Marketing
– Sales Efficiency
– Customer Service

Download the complete study

1- Pour commencer, c’est quoi, le digital ?

Pas toujours évident de savoir « par quel bout » attraper ce sujet, et pour cause : le terme même de digital recouvre plusieurs réalités.

Le digital, c’est d’abord une technologie, autrement dit un procédé, basé sur des principes scientifiques. En l’occurrence, celui qui consiste à représenter des données par le biais d’une suite de chiffres, dans une logique binaire, par opposition au système analogique, qui représente une information par la variation d’une grandeur physique (par exemple : un signal électrique).

Le terme provient de l’anglais « digit », qui signifie « chiffre, nombre », mais également dans sa première acception « doigt » (il a pris la signification de « chiffre » du fait de l’habitude de compter sur ses doigts).

Le terme de digital – en français, numérique – est également employé pour qualifier les systèmes et dispositifs employant ce « langage ». On l’utilise donc au sujet des NTIC (nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication), au premier rang desquelles figurent Internet et les réseaux sociaux.

Enfin, on rassemble sous cette étiquette tout le « device » (les appareils), auquel cette technologie a donné naissance : Smartphones, tablettes, et autres objets connectés.

2- Le digital, à ça quoi sert ?

Comme de nombreuses technologies, le digital sert… à ce que l’on a décidé d’en faire !

Les nouveaux usages et les grandes tendances sont donc en évolution constante, et ne dépendent que de nous !

Appliqué au domaine de l’économie et à la vie de l’entreprise, le digital peut avoir des applications aussi variées que :

- Communiquer en temps réel avec mes clients où qu’ils soient par le biais d’un réseau social
- Transmettre de l’information corporate par le biais d’un site vitrine
- Animer des réunions à distance ou des visio-conférences à en utilisant la VOIP
- Vendre en ligne par le biais d’un site e-commerce
- Vendre plus efficacement sur son lieu de vente, grâce à des applications mobiles (catalogue interactif, personnalisation véhicule, plan 3D cuisine, …)
- Collecter des données riches sur les comportements d’achats de mes clients, et les mettre à disposition de tous les vendeurs d’un réseau de boutiques grâce à une carte à puce
- Stocker en masse et traiter avec une grande vélocité des données particulièrement volumineuses issues de sources multiples et variées, grâce au BIG DATA…

Comme on le voit, les usages potentiels sont multiples.

Ils concernent tous les axes stratégiques de l’entreprise : Communication (notoriété, image…), Business (ventes, connaissance client, fidélisation…) et Organisation (process, outils…).

A vous d’identifier ceux qui présentent un intérêt pour votre activité, et de choisir parmi eux ceux que vous allez mettre en place.

3- Qu’est-ce que je peux y gagner ?

C’est à l’aune de vos propres objectifs et enjeux que vous analyserez cette technologie, et jugerez de la pertinence de la déployer au sein de votre entreprise.

Avant de vous tourner vers une agence de communication qui vous vendra à grand renfort d’analyse des tendances une stratégie digitale pour faire entrer votre entreprise dans l’ère du 2.0, posez-vous les bonnes questions :

- De quoi mes clients ont-ils besoins : informations, nouveaux produits et /ou services ?
- Quels process internes ai-je besoin d’améliorer : gestion des commandes, production…

En clair : dans quels domaines avez-vous besoin d’innover, de vous améliorer ou de vous démarquer pour gagner en attractivité, en compétitivité, en efficience… et par là même en rentabilité !

C’est seulement après avoir répondu à ces questions que vous pourrez aborder la suivante : en quoi le digital peut-il m’y aider ?

4- Comment y parvenir ?

Cette première phase essentielle de définition de vos besoins et de « remise à plat » de votre stratégie globale opérée, vous serez en capacité, soit :

- D’ intégrer les apports du digital à votre stratégie globale, en tenant compte de la spécificité de votre marché, de votre positionnement et de votre organisation interne.
- De bâtir une véritable « stratégie digitale », si – et seulement si – le volet digital représente à lui seul un ensemble cohérent et distinct, voire un pan entier de votre activité.

Dans la plupart des cas, le digital reste une sous-partie de la stratégie de communication, un élément au sein des process de production et/ou un support parmi d’autres au sein des outils dédiés à la vente, et s’intégrera donc à la stratégie globale dans ces domaines.

Mais dans certains cas, le digital représente un véritable gisement de nouvelles offres et de nouveaux services commercialisables (applis pour Smartphones et tablettes, par exemple) à la fois produits et diffusés par le biais des technologies digitales. Il fera alors l’objet d’une attention encore plus poussée et d’une stratégie spécifique.

Quelle que soit votre situation, KESTIO vous accompagne dans votre démarche en vous aidant à :

- définir vos besoins au regard de vos objectifs et en adéquation avec votre stratégie globale
- identifier les possibilités offertes par les nouvelles technologies et les apports qu’elles représentent pour votre entreprise
- sélectionner celles qui comportent une réelle valeur ajoutée pour votre activité et organiser/réaliser leur déploiement

Découvrez, dans ce webinar, comment utiliser le digital pleinement pour votre prospection ?

Le « Service clients », opérationnel depuis près de dix ans, permet au Groupe d’accroître sa performance en terme de satisfaction clients et hôtels. Toutefois, son champ d’activité n’a cessé de s’étoffer, portant aujourd’ hui préjudice à la qualité du service délivré et à l’état d’esprit du personnel composant l’équipe.

Face à ces enjeux forts, les consultants KESTIO, ont mené une mission de réorganisation et de conduite du changement, dans le but d’améliorer la performance de ce Service clients.

Afin de disposer d’un état des lieux exhaustif, les équipes KESTIO avons réalisé un Diagnostic à 360° en sollicitant les membres de l’équipe, leur direction ainsi que toute entité en interaction régulière avec ceux-ci (Communication, Ressources humaines, Marketing, Commercial, Qualité mais aussi les Hôteliers et les Clients). La diversité des échanges et la confrontation des points de vue nous a permis de réaliser une synthèse objective de la situation.

L’étape suivante fut capitale dans la bonne conduite du projet : la Réunion d’adhésion. Il s’agit d’organiser une rencontre des protagonistes concernés par le changement à venir. L’objectif est double :

- partager les conclusions du Diagnostic 360° entre équipe dirigeante et équipe opérationnelle,
- définir la raison d’être du Service clients.

Lors de cette réunion, l’ensemble des acteurs du projet acceptent une part de remise en cause (sur la prise de recul proposée) et s’engagent dans le changement.

L’optimisation de la performance, dans ce cas précis, fut animée en co-construction avec les équipes opérationnelles du Service clients. A travers la préparation et l’animation de plusieurs ateliers de travail (portant sur l’organisation, les processus & Outils et les compétences), nous avons redéfini le cœur de métier du Service clients, son périmètre d’activités, ses objectifs qualitatifs et quantitatifs, ainsi que les transformations opérationnelles nécessaires.

L’expérience et l’implication de chacun a permis, in fine, d’accélérer ce chantier de réorganisation et de rendre rapidement opérationnelles les pistes d’optimisation.

Découvrez, dans ce webinar, comment permettre à vos équipes d’être efficace en réorientant les efforts de vos commerciaux (et, particulièrement dans le contexte actuel).

However, customer understanding remains underdeveloped and often underestimated in terms of business development and customer loyalty. Many salespeople only question their prospects to discover their current or potential level of equipment. They often feel they know their customers well enough, and do not need to conduct an in-depth discovery interview with them.

Customer knowledge is too often passive, and much less frequently the result of commercial proactivity. CRM tools also show that customer databases are often incomplete, while insufficient contact with sales representatives is a frequent reason for customer churn.

Why implement a customer-oriented sales approach?

While product knowledge remains fundamental, implementing a customer-oriented sales approach is therefore both a matter of commercial effectiveness, satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Thanks to a better understanding of the customer and the relationship of trust created, the average value of contracts and conversion rates increase.

Cette évolution représente également un facteur fort d’épanouissement professionnel pour les équipes de vente, permettant de valoriser leur approche et d’apporter une valeur ajoutée très appréciée des clients. Un grand groupe européen d’assurance et de banque a ainsi choisi KESTIO pour l’accompagner dans son projet de déploiement d’une nouvelle démarche client. Ce projet représente un fort enjeu de développement commercial, de fidélisation client et d’amélioration de la contribution client.

How does such an approach materialize?

1. To show interest in your client, you must first prepare for your meeting by analyzing the information available about them, ideally formalized in the CRM tool. In the insurance and banking sector, this means knowing perfectly what the client has within the company, but also with competitors.

2.During the sales meeting, the customer approach also means asking your client exploratory questions, taking a real interest in them and their motivations, and thus going beyond what they have spontaneously said. Investigating the reasons behind the choices made or considered is considered as important as the type of equipment they have (products or services purchased).

3. The proposal should be developed as a comprehensive client solution, and not as a series of unrelated products or in-house services. Therefore, it should start with the client's needs and motivations and be presented with a client-oriented approach.

4. Finally, to position himself within a customer-centric approach, the salesperson adopts the position of an expert. Their assertiveness helps to establish a strong relationship of trust with their client, and to help them make the right choices.

How to deploy a customer approach with sales teams?

Such an evolution in the sales approach requires significant changes for sales teams. In this regard, the presentation of the project and the role of managers will be crucial in giving meaning, supporting, and enabling employees to positively evolve into a new dimension of their profession.

Therefore, the shift from a product-centric to a customer-centric approach should be seen as a significant change in practices, requiring support that integrates skills, tools, processes, and organization.

Because this approach is particularly structuring, it is built over time, with the involvement and conviction of the entire sales management team.

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C’est dans la résolution de cette problématique que KESTIO a engagé son dynamisme et mis à profit son expérience de gestion d’un portefeuille de projets et de conduite du changement, pour l’un des leaders du secteur de l’efficacité énergétique dans l’habitat collectif.

La donnée est simple : l’entreprise se transforme, son cœur de métier s’étoffe, de nombreux projets deviennent indispensables à sa pérennité. Dès lors, la solution régulièrement choisie par les entreprises actuellement est de proposer à leur management intermédiaire de porter la responsabilité d’un projet de changement interne. Les équipes projets alors constituées s’articulent autour de la chaîne de valeur de l’entreprise, puisant dans le vivier de ressources que sont les fonctions métiers, techniques et supports.

L’essentiel de notre intervention se concentre alors sur la Coordination du portefeuille de projets stratégiques, leur pilotage et la montée en compétences des chefs de projet.

Chaque projet est formalisé à travers notre outil « Feuille de route », évaluant entre autres l’ambition du projet, ses risques à terme, le délai attendu, les ressources humaines, techniques et financières à mettre en œuvre. Notre accompagnement objectif permet de maîtriser l’interdépendance des projets.

Parallèlement les instances de gouvernance sont mises en œuvre afin de gérer en interne les projets, de rendre les arbitrages nécessaires, de partager leur avancement et de valider les jalons décisifs. Notre rôle est alors de leur apporter les moyens de piloter ces projets à l’aide de tableau de bord et d’indicateurs de performance, que nous avons défini ensemble.

Dans le même temps, une méthodologie projet est transférée à chacun des chefs de projet. Concrètement, ce fonctionnement permet aux équipes projets de bénéficier d’un véritable suivi de projet à travers l’animation de Plans d’actions hebdomadaires et mensuels.

Enfin, une communication, à fréquence régulière, est rédigée par l’équipe de Coordination du portefeuille de projets, puis adressée par la Direction générale à l’ensemble du personnel afin de donner de la visibilité à cette transformation.

La mise en œuvre de l’ensemble de ces méthodes et outils éprouvés, conjuguée à l’implication continue des équipes de KESTIO, aura permis à cette entreprise d’accélérer son développement.

Pour mener à bien tous vos projets, il est important d’optimiser vos prévisions. Découvrez comment faire dans ce webinar

KEY #1: Lay the foundation for your sales strategy

KEY #2 - Organize an impactful seminar

KEY #3 – Optimize your sales productivity through automation

KEY #4 - Optimize your copywriting to generate more leads

68% of online buyers appreciate reading content published by a company they are interested in.

Key 5: Personalize your approach for relevant customer engagement

35%.

*Source: The Future of Commerce

Cross-selling and up-selling, what is it?

KEY #1 - Information Gathering

For example, for a professional training organization:

KEY #2 - Added value

Situational Exercise & Example

KEY #3 - Personalization

Ultimately, there are two levels to consider in order to sell effectively:

KEY #4: Expert advice

7,2.

*Source: Nomination 2021

KEY #1 - Identify the Components

KEY #2 - Have allies

KEY #3 - Balance the power dynamic

Deux conseils cruciaux :

KEY #4: Expert advice

*Source: Forbes survey

KEY #1 – Translate your strategy into actions

KEY #2 – Enhance your resources

Examples of resources:

KEY #3 – Work on your mindset

KEY #4: Expert advice

50% of salespeople's time is spent on clients with no potential.

KEY #1: Where do we start?

KEY #2: How do we get there?

Why use this tool?

KEY #3: Expert advice

Et vous, êtes-vous « accro » à vos meilleurs commerciaux ?

Vous pouvez (et devez !) vous considérer comme dépendant de vos meilleurs commerciaux si un faible nombre de membres de votre équipe commerciale représente à lui seul une part vitale de votre chiffre d’affaire.

Les dangers de la dépendance envers quelques commerciaux

Talents individuels et efficacité collective

1. DÉFINIR « DES POSTES » AU SEIN DE L’ÉQUIPE COMMERCIALE

2. JOUER COLLECTIF

3. FAIRE EN SORTE QUE CHACUN SE SENTE UN CHAMPION

STEP 1: Specify your objectives

« DO AS MUCH WITH LESS »:

« DO MORE WITH AS MUCH »:

« DO BETTER WITH AS MUCH »:

STEP 2: Identify areas for optimization

STEP 3: Optimize the sales process

INTERNAL REORGANIZATION:

OUTSOURCING:

AUTOMATION:

1. Improve the sales efficiency of your current team

Aiming for an average success rate of 30% on commercial proposals is entirely realistic, even in B2B, and it's a desirable minimum.

2. Opting for a more segmented sales organization.

Formalizing and segmenting the sales process by breaking it down into different phases, then distributing these phases among several people according to their skills and inclinations, is often much more effective.

3. Use substitute or supplementary sales forces.

Using external sales forces has several advantages: with a lower cost price than a permanent recruitment, it can be stopped more simply and is generally accompanied by a commitment to results.

4. Retain your current sales representatives!

To retain your sales representatives in general, and the best among them in particular, it is therefore essential to value the sales function as such.

How to analyze my model?

Perform a daily analysis.

Conduct a more in-depth analysis - The "ANALYSIS" Module.

Key indicators not to be missed

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST

SALES EFFORT BY TARGET

SALES CONVERSION RATE

AVERAGE BASKET PER ACCOUNT TYPE

NUMBER OF OPPORTUNITIES CREATED

Collect and structure data in your CRM.

COLLECT DATA VIA THE CRM

STRUCTURE YOUR DATA WITH A CRM

Structure your business model

SALES PROCESSES

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

1. A CRM tool for a segmented and actionable database

2. A CRM tool to organize your activity.

3. A CRM tool to save time and automate low value-added tasks.

SALES AUTOMATION

DAILY AUTOMATIONS

LEAD SCORING

1. What does "optimizing your sales process" mean, and why should you do it?

50% of salespeople's time is spent
on clients with no potential.