[Testimonial] TRND: How to better transform your leads?

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.