Business Problem: Too many forecasted sales opportunities that never close
Problem:
This company was only closing about 30% of their forecasted opportunities. After interviewing the sales team I discovered the following:
- Poor early cycle discovery; they would gather the technical requirements for an opportunity, but not the other information needed to close a sale
- Not identifying the “whys?” Why do they need to do something? Why do they need to do it now? And, why sould they do it with us?
- Not meeting with every person involved in the decision-making process
In addition, they kept expanding their services to address a broad audience rather than specializing in their core competency.
Action:
To correct these issues I:
- Helped them define their ideal customer profile
- Focused their sales efforts on their core competency
- Trained the sales team on how to sell consultatively since they were selling services
- Taught them how to sell to decision makers
- Developed a sales toolkit to use on the job as a reference
- Coached the leadership on how to manage to the new approach
Results:
- Sales increased 33% in one year
- By focusing on their ideal customer and core competency, they were able to provide better service and become specialists within their core target audience.
- Helped them communicate the benefits of their service to decision makers in their business terms which resulted in more wins
- As a result of the leadership providing coaching to the sales team, poor performers were identified and replaced with sales people who have a proven track record selling computer services