Strategy archives

Founded in 2010, the company has grown rapidly and now employs 340 people in 5 branches. For the past two years, the company has been ranked "Great place to work". At a time when SQUAD is building on solid growth, the company's management is looking to evolve in order to generate greater added value. It is against this backdrop of change that Kestio's sales performance coaching comes into play. Kestio.

Kestio : How did you hear about Kestio ?

Marc Brua: Through the recruitment firm Up Too, which put us in touch. It was in 2015, and we were working on a problem: how to sell more value! We had the technical capabilities to respond to ambitious projects, but we didn't have the right tools to qualify projects and map our market.

Kestio : In other words, you were looking to evolve your offering?

Marc Brua: In concrete terms, we have an ESN-type business where we sell consulting days, but our recognized technical skills can enable us to evolve towards higher value-added missions and visibility for our customers and prospects. So, from a commercial point of view, we had to move upmarket, to better identify the projects we could position ourselves for, in order to add more value.

Kestio : What system did Kestio offer you?

Marc Brua: We brought all our sales staff together for three days of sales training using the Chessboard method. And we benefited fully from the support we put in place. Each sales rep was monitored for 8 to 10 months, with monthly meetings, by video-conference or telephone, on the methods and techniques covered during the training. This approach enabled the theoretical aspects of the training to be applied to day-to-day operations.

It's this follow-up that we've been looking for, this relay that enables us to change behavior in depth and over time. After more than a year, we can now say that this investment has paid off, and that the whole team has benefited.

Kestio : How did she react?

Marc Brua: With sales still on the rise, the sales team hadn't had any training for some time, so they appreciated the opportunity to take advantage of a transfer. The method proposed by Kestio had a strong impact on the whole team, and everyone was able to enrich their techniques and processes. Afterwards, everyone could have returned to their daily production routines and habits. But the monthly follow-up clearly prevented this from happening.

This system of regular remote support responds to the recurring problem of classroom training, where the theoretical input evaporates once you're back in the field. This is what makes the difference today: continuing the effort with practical input to consolidate the changes. The KestioLive consultants are attentive and involved, enabling each sales person to truly change dimension. The great thing is that everyone has progressed, each at his or her own pace.

Kestio : Where are you today?

Marc Brua:

Since the sales training using the Echiquier method method, we have expanded our team to include five new sales managers. As a result, we once again called on Kestio for a six to eight month KESTIO LIVE follow-up toensure the practical acquisition of management methods. On this theme, unlike the first, we are also working on management tools that Kestio has provided and which we have adapted to our situation.

We're still in the early stages of the program, but we're confident. And the five managers who have benefited from this offer are now used to the modus operandi and therefore even more available to take advantage of it.

This system of regular remote support responds to the recurring problem of classroom training, where the theoretical input evaporates once you're back in the field. This is what makes the difference today: continuing the effort with practical input to consolidate the changes. Approach consultants Kestio approach are attentive and involved, enabling each sales person to truly change dimension. The great thing is that everyone has progressed, each at his or her own pace.

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Discover the keys to the evolution of the SALES CONSULTING approach:

But trying to convert prospects takes salespeople into a zone of effort, a space less comfortable than managing acquired customers.

This is where the high-level competitive spirit of sales people becomes essential to activate the determination to initiate new relationships with prospects and take them through to the final positive decision. Some salespeople practice their trade like amateurs on a Sunday. Others do it at a high level and with great ambition.

Competitive spirit, a state of mind

The first step to the right posture is to be proud of the product or service you have to offer. An effective hunter will do this all the more easily if he's convinced of the value of his approach! It's all about overcoming your natural inhibitions to build relationships with strangers who haven't asked for anything and don't need anything!

If he doesn't have this certainty, he'll end up wearing himself out with the inevitable failures he'll have to overcome beforesigning up additional customers. Mentally, a top-level salesperson conditions himself by thinking of all the satisfied customers who are happy to buy his product or service. In other words, he must motivate himself by moving from an "I'm going to be a nuisance" attitude to a deep conviction: "I'm going to give my prospect a benefit, a service".. This positive mental routine is a key to success, simple and so effective!

It's all about changing the way you look at things, to transform a thankless and difficult activity into a positive posture likely to make your company shine. The sales hunter keeps in mind that sales is a joyful game where you always win in the end.

The aim of prospecting is to obtain an appointment (Discover or rediscover our infographic on sales appointments here), an exchange, a first meeting. If they keep a positive mindset, salespeople with a competitive spirit will be prepared to bypass or get over the defence systems, in particular the reception desk and switchboard. He won't lose sight of his goal: to sell the appointment alone, and will bounce from refusal to refusal until he succeeds!

Every competitor relies on a strategy

Secondly, an effective sales person adopts a strategic, well-thought-out approach, in order to gain in efficiency. He begins by defining the profile of his ideal customer. From this, he deduces the relevant criteria for segmenting his target market and extracting from his database the addresses of prospects potentially interested in his product.

From there, much like a top-level athlete who has spent long hours watching his opponents, he identifies the greatest possible number of options for reaching the target determined within the market, in order to give himself the maximum chance of initiating sales conversations and signing a customer. Attentive to his market, the salesperson with a conquering spirit remains alert, on the lookout, and seeks to identify weak signals likely to lead to receptive prospects.

Strategy is also organization. Keeping control of your activity and optimizing your effort and output is the key to long-term success. It starts by blocking off prospecting slots in your diary, time slots during which you don't take incoming e-mails or calls. Shut down all outside distractions that might lead to escape! With this approach, he remains in control, acting according to his own objectives. If he leaves his phone free, he gives others the opportunity to use his time to satisfy their own objectives.

It's advisable to organize yourself around 3-hour slots to guarantee impact and progress without fear of wear and tear. Prospecting for half an hour here and there won't get you off to a good start. By organizing themselves in this way, sales reps will also get used to the idea that prospecting for new customers is not an adjustment variable for the rest of the business, but a must!

Developing the spirit of the high-level competitor involves more than just the technical aspects and the right posture to adopt, it also involves developing the fun aspect. It's a bit like skiing over a field of bumps. For most people, bumps 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 of turning around brakes and obstacles! This change of posture requires training and regular coaching, just like any top-level athlete.

To give managers the skills of good coaches, or to give salespeople the taste and spirit of top-level competitors, we invite you to discover Kestio'scoaching service, dedicated to entrepreneurs and SMEs.

To advance business practices and enter the digital age:

Knowing what drives sales performance, and identifying which levers to use: knowing when, where and how to act - these are the keys you'll find in this article!

The engine is slipping - make sure you repair the right parts!

Have you got your sales strategy right?

How do you coordinate your marketing and sales resources to meet sales targets? How do you generate leads? Is the customer and prospect portfolio well segmented? Do sales reps know who to visit first? How often? On which product(s)? Do they know who their margin customers are? Defining your sales strategy helps to align and direct team efforts in a coherent and effective way, maximizing ROI and reducing the risk of missing out on interesting business!

Do you provide real business support to your teams? Not during the meetings. Before.

If the answer to this question is no, you're going to burn out your team! Today, the ability of a sales department to implement a lead generation system is an integral part of the bottom line! Today, direct prospecting activities (outbound), which are proving less and less effective, are gradually being replaced by attraction activities (inbound). Your website, thanks to lead generation, breathes new life into your team and prevents them from burning out.

How is the sales action plan defined in your company?

The sales action plan is the operational translation of the sales strategy, applied to the teams. It's a roadmap built around three axes:

Volume of activity (for each salesperson), i.e. number of appointments, telephone contacts, proposals, sales...
Activity orientation, i.e. matching efforts with priority segments (hence the importance of customer segmentation!).
And finally, the quality of the activity, i.e. the means by which the conversion rate is ensured.

What if it came from you? Honestly?

Do you have a strategy, a marketing plan, a CAP, and the results just aren't there? Then the most frequent cause is a lack of application in operational implementation. Sales performance also depends on the active, constructive role played by sales management: putting all this to music, keeping the engine running and keeping an eye on where and when to act. With managerial tools, simple, up-to-date scorecards, frequent exchanges and a supportive attitude, he or she ensures that the team keeps moving forward!

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

To be successful, every salesperson on your team needs to have three optimized "energy stores" to stay in a positive dynamic.

First, expertise: your offer, your products, your company, but also your market, your competitors, your customers...
Secondly, business skills: i.e. mastering sales and negotiation techniques, being able to adapt your know-how and interpersonal skills,...
Finally, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: driven, of course, by remuneration, but above all by recognition, a taste for challenge, the team atmosphere and spirit, and the company's sense of purpose and ambition...

How is customer information structured to enhance performance?

There's a lot of talk these days about data, and if this subject concerns the general public, it also applies to your customer portfolio! Upstream, information enables you to build your sales strategy more effectively, to refine your individual knowledge of each customer, and downstream, to manage your actions. It doesn't matter whether you're starting out with an Excel spreadsheet, or whether you're looking for a fully-fledged CRM tool: capturing, organizing and exploiting customer information is essential for sales performance!

Finally, do you have a high-performance support system?

In a way, this support is the back office, the set of resources deployed to help marketing and sales teams concentrate on their core business. There are 3 main types of support:

- Sales administration, with order management, invoicing, follow-up,...
- Marketing professions, including specialists in digital, research,...
- Customer service, to maintain the quality of the relationship, but also to feed back useful information to maintain or develop sales with your active customers...

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

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

....... What is your own dynamic beyond your role as facilitator? If you look at your own functioning like a doctor looks at a patient's body: are you more "Head" (analytical), "Heart" (emotional and relational), "Hands" (directive) or "Feet" (running, running, action, action!)? Identify your own functioning with hindsight and objectivity, and the other 7 levers will go your way more easily.

But sometimes there isn't enough time to step back and take action on all the levers. Kestioenables you to orientate your actions precisely and at the right pace, to ensure that the engines are running smoothly, within the overall vision of the system!

To find out more, download our White Paper: HOMO SAPIENS COMMERCIALIS: the salesperson in the digital age.

You can also read about our innovative approaches to supporting leaders, managers, project managers and sales people in startups and SMEs through this change:

The answer, of course, is yes, except that .... the XEROX way of today bears no resemblance to the XEROX method of 30 years ago! Beyond the sales school that made many a salesman dream, salespeople have to adapt to a new environment, a context in which prospects, competitors, exchanges, tools and suppliers have all changed significantly, reshaping the way they do this job, which is key to a company's survival.

If XEROX's sales teams occupy a special place in the collective unconscious (that of a model of efficiency and performance complementing its sales strategy), it's because the company, in its sales management, was a pioneer in formalizing the sales process, moving from the intuitive approach of the sales representative to the structured, 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 work with all year round, who show us how to maintain their level of performance in the age of multi-channel sales.

With "consultative selling" methods, the salesperson would focus the entire conversation on understanding the customer's issues, and gradually build the link with the products/services he or she could offer.

The salesperson's objective, through questioning (with the famous "open-ended questions"), was to identify the need and propose the solution to rapidly 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, easy access to numerous sources of information and offers. Prospects can therefore look for comparative elements, form their own ideas and define their needs independently, at their own pace and whenever they want. So what is the value of the salesperson in this context, and in his or her interactions with the customer?

Bring a unique point of view and convictions

To boost sales performance, salespeople need to adopt a posture that is less focused on the products they have to sell, and more on sincere, detached listening. Today, for customers to accept support, salespeople need to understand the challenges they face in their own markets. He needs to go up a level to understand how the customer seeks to maintain and improve his position in his market environment. This implies an economic understanding of sectoral trends, in order to challenge the customer's vision.

Through an open, conviction-driven discussion, the salesperson will build an approach designed to offer a point of view on the market, share potential risks identified in the sector, and help the customer consider alternatives. In other words, salespeople must always master the tools of dialogue to build a rich and open conversation, but also to strengthen their ability to support their customers in making the best investment choices.

The good salesperson will seek to learn more about his prospect's environment, provide food for thought, and become an advisor challenging established positions. Their primary horizon is no longer their own commercial objectives, but their ability to offer innovative, offbeat points of view to help their customers make the best choices.

Adding value

The direct consequence of this posture is that sales people are encouraged to add more value, making their job more rewarding.

In a complex environment, where employees in purchasing situations are unable to analyze and have an expert vision of every subject, today's sales person must be able to position himself as a resource capable of helping them, and pushing them, to help them make the right decisions! This is how the profession is evolving. The new-generation salesperson is moving towards an approach in which he or she achieves his or her objectives because they are the consequence of his or her advisory and expert action to capture the customer's attention. Since the salesperson is no longer the only point of entry for the prospect, it's vital that he or she focuses on what he or she brings to the table. Don't forget that a 3-minute demonstration video will always have more impact than a sales pitch.

To achieve this, salespeople must be able to change their way of seeing and doing things, broaden their scope in order to provide their prospects with relevant, well-argued advice. And if they can anticipate market trends and give their prospects a head start, they've won!

Clearly, the job is becoming more comprehensive and complex. It requires mastery of traditional methods in terms of organization, rigor, discipline, mentality, pace, knowledge and technical mastery (the interview stages remain a common thread), but it also requires the ability to activate differentiated responses and points of view adapted to the buyer. The salespeople who achieve lasting success are those who have been able to focus on the customer's interests, making them successful in their own market.

How are your sales people going to develop these new skills? A long-term change management approach is needed to strengthen your teams and enable them to become a decisive differentiating factor in your multi-channel go-to-market.

To find out more, download our White Paper: HOMO SAPIENS COMMERCIALIS: the salesperson in the digital age.

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

Andrei Vestemeanu - partner and co-founder of his start-up Wisembly - called on the services of KESTIO to train his team of 10 salespeople and optimize his sales organization with a view to improving his conversion rates.

A look back at the results of this approach.

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

A. Vestemeanu: Wisembly is a start-up that publishes a collaborative solution for meeting preparation and facilitation, enabling the companies that use it to gain in productivity by making their meetings more effective and more engaging thanks to digital technology. Founded 6 years ago, the company now has over 600 customers on 5 continents, and works with 80% of CAC 40 listed companies. It already has around forty employees and 2 offices in Paris and London.

"Initially, I contacted KESTIO to train our sales people in complex sales methods, with the idea of giving them a common background and a homogeneous way of working for the team."

In the course of our discussions, we quickly realized that beyond this question, it would also be interesting to work on the " sales organization " aspect upstream of this training action to have an optimal impact on our results.

On the subject of opportunity conversion, for example, a diagnosis carried out by the consultant enabled us to observe a 20% transformation rate (between the number of discoveries and the number of signatures). This means that 80% of sales time had previously been wasted!

2- Main stages of support: diagnosis, sales organization optimization, sales training and coaching

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

"The aim was to assess the efficiency of our current sales organization and identify priority areas for improvement."

This enabled him to formulate a number of concrete recommendations, which were presented to us at a feedback meeting. The areas for improvement identified concerned, for example, the segmentation of our customer portfolio into "gold, silver and bronze" customers according to their potential.

On this basis in particular, we were then able to define the right "sales intensity" (in terms of frequency, time and resources) to allocate to our customers, the right "mix" between physical, telephone and video appointments (to reduce travel time) based on a better analysis of the stakes of each sales appointment.

On the basis of this initial analysis, we then organized 2 workshop meetings between the 3 Associate Directors and the Sales Director, to precisely define the outlines of the target organization towards which we are moving in our sales management.

About a month after this work, we set up the sales training courses:

- 2 days' training in the Chessboard Method© for the 10 sales representatives, in the presence of the 3 associates
- Then individual coaching sessions(remotely, for sales reps based in London, editor's note), at the rate of one 1-hour session per month for each sales rep.

These sessions enable everyone to call on the consultant according to their needs: they can focus on a particular deal to be accompanied in the investigation of the account or review the basics of the method.

The Sales Manager is present during the coaching sessions. At the end of the sessions, the Sales Manager, the consultant and I systematically conduct a global debriefing.

In particular, this enables us to share information about the managerial handover and the areas of work adopted following the coaching session, so that we can continue tosupport the sales person between sessions andanchor their skills.

3- Results: better allocation of sales resources, increased sales productivity and optimized conversion rates.

During Sales Diag©, we observed that contact strategy was essentially based on physical appointments. However, in the multi-channel era, it is possible to develop more efficient and less costly strategies. We therefore began to carry out the discovery phase by telephone.

"By transferring this activity to a telephone channel, we doubled the number of weekly contacts at iso perimeter of resources, which is the productivity equivalent of 6 more salespeople at no extra cost!"

In addition, to meet the objective of improving conversion rates, we have developed a GO/NO GO grid with the help of KESTIO . Combined with the implementation of a complex sales training program (Méthode de l'Echiquier©), this now enables us to identify more quickly those opportunities that will not succeed because they do not meet the necessary conditions.

"This time previously lost on low-qualified opportunities has been transferred to prospecting and more in-depth work dedicated to opportunities with a higher probability of winning to further optimize our chances of winning his business."

On a more general level, we have clarified the segmentation of our customer portfolio, and we now have a common nomenclature for discussing deals: this facilitates exchanges, encourages dialogue and mutual understanding. We work better as a team.

The initial level of appropriation varies from person to person, which is whyindividual coaching is essential. We regularly need to go back to the basics of the method.

As far as sales organization is concerned, we are now able to allocate available resources in line with our defined priorities. This will be particularly useful in winning new customers and pursuing our international expansion!

To find out more about sales performance :

KESTIO is a company specializing in services and solutions to improve Customer Performance. For over 10 years, we have been helping companies to secure and sustainably increase their revenues, by acting on all the levers that enable them to acquire and retain customers.

Other articles from our blog that may be of interest to you:

If you follow this blog regularly, you'll know that our managers and consultants publish business-oriented advice and best practice articles for young start-up managers, on the excellent online medium Les Echos START (re)discover our 2 previous articles "Start-ups: 5 sales-inspired tips to sell your project"and "4 key steps for selling yourself on social networks". Here is the third article in our series, by Fabien COMTET - founder and CEO of KESTIOto support start-ups in the - sometimes critical - phase of commercial expansion.

Is your startup's sales activity starting to reach a significant volume and is your sales performance growing rapidly? That's great news, and it's the moment when your greatest dreams finally come true! Paradoxically, it's also a critical moment, which in some cases can be fatal: when the sales stakes become higher, the internal organization through its sales management is directly impacted, and the need to structure your sales development is quickly felt. Where, until now, a fairly "instinctive" sales approach and the opportunistic activation of the founding members' individual networks may have sufficed, you now need to think up a more sustainable model that can be "duplicated" for the new arrivals the team is sure to welcome...

Don't panic, a takeoff is always good news, and this phase can be managed very well with a little anticipation and by following these few tips:

1 - Identify your sales success stories

Using the success stories that have helped your startup grow is a good starting point for structuring your sales action.

2 - Involve all employees in drawing up a profile of the perfect customer

In the transition from a human-scale start-up to alarger, more structured company, the first employees may no longer fully identify with the new way of working. Involving them actively is a must, if you don't want certain key members to leave.

3 - Define the right sales "method" and identify what's missing

The right sales method needs to emerge from in-house experience, and can then be compared with external best practices. In that order. Not the other way around.

4 - Equip yourself with the right tools for each stage

When a start-up becomes a large-scale enterprise, the reflex is often to turn to dedicated (and expensive) customer relationship management software. Wrong! There are plenty of free or nearly free tools available today, and there's no need to start immediately with highly complex solutions.

Discover the article " Help, my start-up is taking off! Les clés pour réussir son essor commercial" in its entirety on the Les ECHOS Start website.

You can find out how dynamic your sales are with our SCORE 7 tool. Take the free test by clicking on the link below:

Other related articles published on our blog:

1-Could you tell us a little about your business and your customers?

We help brands to grow by activating their consumers, turning them into true "brand ambassadors", so that they can benefit from this incredible prescription force and ultimately generate more deals.

The community we lead helps to promote these products in a variety of ways: for example, by making suggestions for improvement to the brand, by posting customer reviews on the Internet, or by spreading the word about these products simply by word-of-mouth.

Our motto: "Who better to talk about a product than a convinced consumer?

We advocate "real-life" marketing (as opposed to mass advertising messages), whose success is based on the quality of products and their relevance to customer expectations.

Our customers include major consumer goods brands (Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Unilever, Nivea, Coca Cola...), high tech (Samsung, HTC, Sony...) and small household appliances (Braun, Bosch, Philips, IRobot...).

I'm in charge of defining and implementing the sales strategy for the French market with our customers, partners and specifiers.

2- Why did you call on KESTIO, and what were your objectives in terms of lead conversion?

It was theanalysis of our sales cycle that led to the training and coaching project with KESTIO Like any sales manager, I first asked myself "how can we increase our sales team's conversion rate " to win more deals?

I then looked at the different stages of our sales cycle and conversion funnel (targeting, prospecting, conversion...) to identify areas for improvement at each stage and positively impact our sales performance.

Based on this analysis, I initially contacted KESTIO to set up a training program focused on the closing stage. But in the course of our discussions with Dominique SEGUIN, which took place in the context of a global coaching approach, our thinking broadened and took on a different direction.

I had expressed a goal like: "go from 10 conversions per 100 leads to 20 conversions per 100 leads". You led me to look at things from a new angle by expressing this objective differently: "go from 10 conversions per 100 leads to 20 deals won by working on only 60 leads".

This is the strength of your approach and of the Méthode de l'Echiquier©, which is based on both better targeting and a new approach to prospecting, leaving nothing to chance and optimizing the conversion rate.

3- What measures 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 of the training sessions and the coaching follow-up.

In practice, we initially set up 3 fairly intensive training days. We scheduled them over a month and a half, so as to leave a little time between sessions to allow for the initial application of the principles covered.

This time proved useful in integrating the concepts transmitted, as some of them are quite disruptive and really require you to modify your approach, to change your posture quite radically, particularly in your relationship with customers, and therefore to question your "acquired knowledge" or habits.

I had warned my sales staff of the rather "rupturist" aspect of the Method, to prepare them to welcome this change. This point really contributed to the success of the training, I think : the sales staff were immediately involved in the approach in a very voluntary way, and really changed their practices and applied the method, immediately after the training.

Secondly, the introduction of coaching and follow-up sessions - at the rate of 1h30 per month for each sales rep for 3 months - enabledthese new practices to take root.

This individualized, long-term support 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 coaching stage, which is so beneficial to our sales people.

4- What results did this training produce? Did it help you achieve your lead conversion objectives?

The training is recent, so I don't yet have enough hindsight on the commercial results in terms of conversion rates.

Already, our sales staff's posture and the way they support our customers have evolved considerably, which is very promising.

The new concepts discovered in training have become so obvious that we sometimes even wonder how we could have done things differently before!

Today, for example, all our sales staff use verbatim note-taking during sales meetings, and our discussions are based on richer, more objective information.

Salespeople's vocabulary has changed: the use of common concepts helps them not only individually in the way they handle deals, but also in their exchanges, which are more fluid.

Their relationship with customers has evolved: there has been a very strong awareness of the idea that this relationship must be balanced, that the effort made must be proportional.

Just as in seduction, you also need to know how to "make yourself wanted"! It's not enough to systematically trigger a meeting or the sending of a proposal: the desire must be real and shared.

Sales people manage their diaries in a different way, they're no longer in a "meeting marathon", and above all, they approach these meetings with a different frame of mind.

As a result, we've optimized the sales cycle and are now able to focus on the customers who really need us, to support them in their decision-making cycle.

In terms of management, the method also has an impact on the way we monitor and steer our sales staff: during my monthly business reviews with each sales rep, I use new monitoring points, shared with all the sales staff and comparable from one deal to the next.

The scoring sheet provides an objective, structured way of gauging an opportunity's level of qualification, but it also requires you to pay close attention to the vigilance points inherent in the method: have all the decision-makers, the budget, the decision timetable, etc. been identified?

In the past, we sometimes tended to rely on the salesperson's "feeling" about a deal. Now we have a completely different way of analyzing deals!

This new sales approach is perfectly in line with our strategic objectives for the months ahead: to stand out in an increasingly competitive market, to increase the value of our support to customers and prospects, and to continue optimizing our sales cycle.

Find out more about your company's sales and marketing performance score:

You may also be interested in our webinars:

Discover the KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

all topics related to sales performance with our experts:

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, General Manager

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

In a turbulent radio advertising market that has been in structural decline year on year for almost 10 years now, the Lagardère Publicité group (Europe 1, Elle, Gulli...) has made the strategic choice to move away from selling advertising space to designing increasingly diversified global offers, tailored to their customers' needs. This highly strategic change in business model is beginning to bear fruit, but it also represents a minor revolution for the Group's sales teams, who must develop specialized skills specific to "complex sales", in order to convince key account customers whose decision-making cycles are long and involve numerous players : decision-makers, internal influencers and/or intermediaries (media, advertising or event agencies)... And to move from a product/brand orientation to a questioning approach focused on "customer issues"!

Franck GODIN, Radio Sales Director at Lagardère Publicité, heads up the team of some twenty sales representatives in charge of the group's 3 flagship stations (Europe 1, Virgin Radio and RFM), and looks back on the system implemented with KESTIO to develop the skills of its sales teams. The program was subsequently extended to more than 100 Lagardère Group sales staff.

1. What triggered your sales training project?

Franck Godin: At the outset, our main objective was to win new customers: after a complicated period, and in a market context that has been fairly tense for media in general over the past 10 years, we wanted to grow and win new business in our market, and to do so we didn't hesitate to review our business model.

Not an easy task, given that the radio sector - although less affected than the print and outdoor media by the difficulties associated with the massive arrival of digital on the advertising market - has been experiencing a structural decline in revenues for several years.

We have over 500 customers. Our customer renewal rate is around a third a year for advertising space purchases, and almost twice as high for "special operations" (which include an events component, editor's note). So the stakes are high.

Our strategy must also guarantee our margins in order to increase profitability : this is based, among other things, on the development of new integrated offers, drawing on the rich possibilities offered by our different media brands. We are constantly creating new solutions, in collaboration with different internal teams and in line with our customers' needs.

The sales profession in our field has thus evolved considerably in recent years : from sellers of advertising space, sales people 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 sales operating mode : we are now involved in much more complex sales, so we had to build a different sales model.

2. How did the collaboration with Kestio go? What training programs were put in place?

F.G.: Initially, KESTIO was asked by Lagardère to run a sales seminar for 45 people (the 20 sales people on the radio team, plus the creative and marketing teams).

This was followed by a 2-day training course on the Exchequer Method for the team of 20 radio sales representatives, to "set the scene" and provide the basics of the method.

This was followed by individual coaching over a one-year period, 2 hours a month, by 4 KESTIO consultants.

This kind of sales support represents a major investment, so we started with the seminar as a first step, before moving on to training courses.

In the end, the project took on much greater scope : we presented the KESTIO solutions to the Human Resources department, and the training was extended to all Lagardère Publicité sales staff (press, digital and TV), i.e. a hundred employees in all.

3. What objectives have you set yourself with this training program?

F.G. : The initial objective was simply to increase the sales force's ability to win new customers.

We then moved on to the idea of strengthening our sales teams' coverage of the "right contacts", i.e. being able to address not only the Communications Director, our traditional contact, but also other players involved in the decision or influencers (for example, the CSR manager for an environment-related event project) and of course all the intermediaries in the chain: media, creative and advertising agencies...

On some deals, we have up to 4 intermediaries or service providers involved, in addition to our customer, who each give their opinion on the final purchasing decision!

In addition to the number of customers, we also wanted to increase the share of "special operations" in our sales (operations that set our customers apart, but also event-based operations).

All this means developing in-depth knowledge of our customers, working more closely with them and gathering information on their organization and business challenges.

It's easy to say, but difficult to do, and KESTIO 's intervention helped us to progress and anchor these practices thanks to a highly individualized approach to each employee.

4. Are you already seeing results from these actions? What are the main benefits?

F.G.: First of all, we've noticed a real awareness on the part of our sales teams. Initially, they found the training rather confusing.

One sales rep even told me after the first training module that he felt he had to "learn to walk again". The image is strong, but there was a real destabilization phase.

Once this had been done, the sales team took to applying the method quite naturally. They now have a much better understanding of our customers and their needs.

We apply this method to our customers and to the intermediaries we have already mentioned, with the result that our success rate is on the rise when it comes to the famous complex devices (special operations), because we know how to adapt and react quickly to all the players in the decision-making chain.

This better understanding of our customers' challenges, combined with the diversification of our offerings, also enables us to win over new advertisers.

We are more effective in our overall sales strategy: we are fortunate to have a highly diversified range of offerings, so it's up to us to find the right solution for our customers, based on our in-depth knowledge of their challenges.

On a managerial level, the training has also brought about changes in our practices: individual coaching sessions based on questioning have been introduced and systematized between managers and their team members. These individual meetings are the perfect complement to team meetings.

Involving managers in the process is essential to support this transformation of sales practices. It must be integrated as far upstream as possible.

5. How do you see the future? What are the main challenges ahead?

F.G. : We now have a major challenge in sustaining the results of these actions: having passed a milestone in terms of special operations on the group's three stations (Europe 1, Virgin Radio, RFM), we now need to confirm these results over time.

Our main challenge is to integrate digital into our media recommendations. We have to convince our customers to use the digital levers integrated into radio programs in their operations.

There's still a way to go before we' re systematically using digital technology, and the prospects are real, for example with a site like Europe1.fr, which is consulted by over 5 million people a month, where we can imagine enriched and innovative content.

Finally, we also need to convince our customers to repeat the operation year after year, to have a real support logic. We're in a business in which customers are very much in demand, so we need to continue working on the notion of customer effort, by developing our listening skills through open-ended questions, by precisely identifying our contacts, and by being able to approach them intelligently, in short by having a more systematic approach based on the methods that KESTIO has passed on to us.

To achieve this, the sales teams will continue to pursue an increasingly "customer-centric" approach.

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Conventional methods of making contact (such as cold calling) are facing ever-decreasing returns. Digital technology (with social networks at the forefront) can help counterbalance this trend, and energize the entire sales process. Provided you organize your sales process to effectively integrate this new component, of course! So, should you choose between traditional methods and digital techniques? And how can you make the most of the latter to generate leads?

Here are some answers based on our operational expertise and customer feedback.

Sales process: conventional methods no longer suffice

Have you developed in-house sales techniques? Do you have "recipes" for generating leads that salespeople are familiar with, and which bring satisfactory results? Excellent. So why not stick to these methods? Because they're no longer enough. They're no longer enough to convince your contacts, who have become better educated in sales techniques and sometimes resistant to marketing designed to generate mass requests. In some cases, these classic techniques are no longer sufficient to meet contact and sales targets, or, when they are, they entail high costs and a heavy investment of time.

- The number of appointments obtained by telephone calls is steadily declining. The ever-decreasing cost of telecommunications for businesses, and the multiplication of prospecting services, generate a flood of calls that we all often try to avoid. What's more, the information used for these calls is poorly traced and very short-term oriented;
- The way buyers work has evolved. The Internet has become a preliminary or parallel step to any "real" exchange. We get information from blogs and official websites, and we "Google" a whole host of things. Ignoring this new stage in the customer journey is doomed to failure;
- Companies that have a very distinct organization, between the marketing department that generates leads and the sales department that exploits and transforms these leads, lack a global vision. Interaction strategies need to be thought through as far upstream as possible if they are to bear fruit and deliver quality leads. It's no longer enough to have a simple vision of the salesperson who is "fed" by marketing. They must become players right from thepre-sales stage.

Traditional sales methods are not to be banished. We simply have to realize that they are no longer sufficient to achieve results, or even to stand out from the crowd in an increasingly competitive environment. To improve the financial efficiency of prospecting, and to find that little extra that makes all the difference, you need to integrate digital technology and take into account 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! Traditional and digital methods are complementary. The new methods are an evolution of the classic ones, so the whole business doesn't have to be reinvented. What we do need to do, however, is work on the content, so that the focus is no longer solely on the brand and its products, but rather on the benefits for the customer.

Initiating a "commercial digitization" process: the essential steps along the way

Renewing sales processes, touching them and making them evolve by infusing a little digital (website that encourages contact requests, white papers, mobile app, etc.) is the hardest part. This digitalization has a fundamental effect on the way tasks are carried out, and thus changes certain processes in a lasting way.

Let's take an example: if you embark on a process of better lead qualification, and decide to use predictive analytics, it will be easy to implement the tools that enable these changes. On the other hand, it will be much more difficult to change the way your employees use this data, and integrate it into their day-to-day missions.

So you need a roadmap. A change of mentality within the company is needed to shift priorities: everyone needs to get involved and think in terms of customer benefits and real consumer expectations. How do you launch this transformation? Through change management support, and gradual implementation, depending on the characteristics of your company.

- Start by clearly defining lead segmentation, scoring criteria and processes, as well as conversion scenarios and funnels to qualify these leads and deliver them to the sales team at the right time (maturity, progress in the buying decision process);
- Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to better monitor these different stages. Take care of your internal processes for tracking, storing and using contact data. This is a raw material that must not be neglected, and you must take care to ensure its quality;
- Set up procedures for assigning leads and "passing on" them to sales reps according to your own criteria;

However, digitizing sales processes involves much more than defining procedures and operating diagrams. You also need to integrate a "marketing" approach in the upstream (i.e. pre-sales) phase, and get sales people involved. They need to be present at every stage. They are the ones who know the products and customers, and have a concrete vision of needs. They need to be involved in defining the themes and "content" designed to attract and engage leads. This represents a real paradigm shift in the way they work.

They need to be offered support (training, highly educational explanatory sessions, group work between departments) to help them adapt. We need to communicate more than usual to explain the changes underway and their purpose. All-round support is needed, mobilizing all the different internal players, in the service of sales efficiency and customer experience... digitalized!

As you can see, lead development strategies involving interaction on social networks or websites can gradually bring a future customer closer to the prospecting company. This approach is not at odds with the traditional approach of making appointments by telephone or canvassing in the field. Salespeople need to be an integral part of the digitization process, adding new tools that don't break their job, but rather help them to reappropriate it. Now more than ever, digital technology makes it possible to maintain conversion with prospects over the long term, to build a relationship over time and to adapt to all expectations, whether the prospect is already mature or in the discovery phase. A "better" way of working and winning orders that you need to explain to your sales force to win their support.

And for you, what areas of work can improve your sales performance?

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But a lot has changed over the last few years - particularly under the influence of digital technology - and a real change of model is underway, which is considerably modifying the sales organization of companies. With one major impact: salespeople are going to have to move into "collaborative" mode!

1- The end of the unique sales-customer relationship

A lot has changed in recent years, challenging traditional business models.

In the first place, technology burst onto the scene, and shoppers reclaimed the balance of power they'd been missing: total control of the buying journey.

As we have already seen in several of our articles (The salesman is dead, long live the advisory salesman and Are your sales systems lagging behind?), most of the decision-making and purchasing process is now outsourced to the salesperson, via the Internet, social networks and peer review.

In parallel with this fundamental change in purchasing behavior, companies and their sales teams are increasingly faced with obstacles of various kinds. of different kinds:

- Customer volatility
- Longer sales cycles
- Lower average selling prices
- Difficulty contacting decision-makers for reasons of interest and availability
- Higher acquisition costs than customer retention costs

In addition, 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 option for survival, although intrinsically unsustainable in the medium/long term.

What impact does this changeover have on organization and business models?

2- "Everyone is a Salesperson

The first impact is that these upheavals mark the end of the unique sales-customer relationship.

To caricaturize a little, before the changes mentioned above, the sales "go-to-market" strategy essentially consisted of asking "what size bait should I use?" to win customers and keep them coming back.

Usually, we had a segmentation of customer profile/sales contact type: telesales in charge of small customers, the field sales force in charge of the mid-market (SME/ETI) and key accounts in charge of national customers and more. This system made sense at a time when the sales representative was still the sole point of entry to the supplier.

Today, as we've seen, a customer completes most (57%) of his or her purchasing journey without a salesperson. They only approach the salesperson two-thirds of the way through, having defined their needs from the comfort of their own office, and in a much more objective way than with a salesperson who is inevitably the judge and arbiter.

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

Nowadays, a prospect's or customer's relationship with a company is triggered well in advance (and sometimes even outside) of any contact with the salesperson.

The company's first "ambassadors" are often: discussion forums, comparison and evaluation sites, the supplier's official website and/or its official pages on social networks.

If the customer completes the entire purchasing process online, the efficiency of your logistics department, the clarity of your order tracking and the simplicity of your after-sales procedures will do even more to build customer loyalty than the relationships established by your sales force...!

Today, all company employees play an important role in how customers feel about their brand! This means they all have to be "customer-centric", aware of their role and mission with regard to the customer.

However, what has always been self-evident for salespeople ("pampering" their customers) is not necessarily the case for professions that are farthest removed from direct customer contact, such as logistics.

Hence the fundamental change represented by the entry into the era of "Everyone is a sales person": it underpins a real evolution in the sales organization model, with different professions working closely together, first and foremost marketing, sales and customer service.

3- Towards a new sales organization model

Today, as a result of these developments, companies are moving away from traditional customer profile/salesperson segmentation towards a sales organization built around the customer journey and its successive stages on the different channels.

Now that the salesperson has lost his or her role as the single point of entry for the prospect/customer, other functions will have to assume a decisive role: These include collecting customer data and generating "commitment", before handing over to the sales people in charge of converting the trial.

The traditional approach is vertical, siloed and sequential: emailing by marketing, follow-up by an outsourced sales force, appointments by sales and analysis of the campaign conversion rate by marketing and sales.

The new cross-functional, integrated sales approach requires tasks to be distributed throughout the customer journey: a visit to the supplier's website gives rise to a content proposal in exchange for obtaining the email, which may generate a newsletter subscription, a technical webinar proposal, a visit from a sales rep, the sharing of a white paper, an invitation to a customer event, and perhaps, ultimately, a meeting with the sales rep.

The marketing approach has evolved towards Inbound Marketing, and this means that the allocation of sales resources has changed: a large part of the decision and purchase cycle is handled through a marketing response, not a sales response.

However, in the current revolution, marketing has taken the lead over sales, creating a significant performance potential that needs to be exploited: using the leads transmitted and the information collected in a timely and constructive way to progressively refine sales tactics and therefore conversion rates.

4- Collaboration at the heart of digital transformation

As a result, new sales and marketing models must now meet the following challenges, and the internal organization must adapt to them in terms of skills and resources:

Make the act of buying simple and easy:

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

Right from the start of the purchasing process, interactions should enable buyers to define their needs precisely, so that suppliers can provide the most personalized response possible, and respond precisely to their expectations.

Delivering customer value differently

Today, virtual tools (online video, 3D animation, augmented reality...) are gradually replacing face-to-face sales pitches and demonstrations.

BtoB salespeople, given buyers' level of autonomy in terms of product knowledge, need to provide "advice" to help customers think through and build their projects.

Getting to know customers better through a collaborative approach

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

Reconciling marketing, sales and customer service is therefore a key factor in the performance of BtoB companies.

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

How do you perceive these changes in your business? Have you modified your internal organization and the distribution of sales effort?