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.
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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 spiritbecomes 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:
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.
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 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 representativesand 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 ofcommon 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:
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.
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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 sustainingthe 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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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.
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.
Alongside this fundamental evolution in purchasing behavior, companies and their sales representatives are increasingly confronted with obstaclesof 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 involvesa 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?
