How does a business leap to a higher “sales trajectory”, that too in the year of pandemic?
How does the “sales productivity” of a sales team increase significantly and sustainably?
How does a team’s selling approach change from being “product focussed” to “customer focussed”?
These are real challenges faced by many organizations. Overcoming them can be critical to business survival and growth.
Read on to learn how Serengeti Ventures (SV) helped one of its clients overcome all these challenges and enabled the client to achieve its revenue targets.
IN THE TEXT GIVEN BELOW, THE NAME OF THE CLIENT IS BEING WITH-HELD DUE TO CONFIDENTIALITY REASONS.
ABC, one of SV’s clients, is the Wealth Management business of a leading Multi-national Bank in Southeast Asia. ABC provides various Insurance as well as Investment solutions to the bank’s customers. Typical customers of ABC are wealthy individuals such as business-owners, senior executives, retirees, professionals.
ABC’s revenue for the last 4 years showed a stagnant trend. The average sales productivity was low. Further, sales of ABC’s key competitors were growing fast.
SV was roped in during 2019 to undertake a Project to help grow ABC’s revenues in 2020 as well as to inculcate professional sales habits in its team of Relationship Managers (RMs), Sales Leaders, Product Managers and Specialists.
The Project started with a Diagnostic phase, an in-depth exercise that uses SV’s analytical tools. This included sales data analysis, reviews of KPIs, incentives, organization structure, roles, current sales practices and marketing collateral.
This led to formation of key change initiatives that were undertaken in the Design and Execution phases of the Project:
1. Role clarity and alignment:
a. The roles of Product Managers & Specialists were clarified and re-vitalized with a view to drive sales.
b. Top 3 jobs of each role were re-designed.
c. A shift towards selling with a customer-oriented mind-set was initiated.
This was foundational work that led to other changes in execution.
2. Customer Segment-Product grid:
This grid is one of SV’s proprietary solutions, and was mapped out for ABC’s entire business. It showed TWO Big opportunities in the bank’s customer base to increase penetration of Insurance and Investment products.
3. Build a “Customer First” theme:
A change in mind-set of the team from “pushing products” to “selling based on customer needs” was necessary. To enable this,
a. Pitch-books were designed as aids to enable engaging conversations with customers.
b. These were brought to life and put into action through SV’s 6-step pitching training, pitching demos and live role-plays.
c. The marketing communication and sales training content were also simplified and made more customer oriented.
4. Improve Activity Management:
SV’s sales activity management framework “CAPOS” is a data driven approach to measure and improve sales activity and sales funnel.
Using this framework, a simple, comprehensive Activity Management tool was designed and rolled-out. It helped increase overall activity levels and sales conversion rates.
5. Sales Analytics:
New Management Information (MI) and Dashboards were rolled out to all Sales Managers and Leaders on a monthly basis.
This included sales performance analysis of actions for all geographies, sales teams and individual sales persons.
Regular monthly reviews using these reports helped improve overall sales performance as well as its consistency.
Covid Impact
The Project was impacted for most of its duration by the pandemic and the lockdown that ensued. Coping mechanisms were introduced such as virtual trainings/ workshops, role-play videos, virtual client meetings and simplified, virtual pitching content. These ensured Project continuity and helped accelerate adoption of changes.
Key Outcomes
In-spite of disruption and challenges caused by the pandemic, the Project’s outcomes to the client were extremely positive
Revenues in 2020 for “in-scope” lines grew by 31%
Average Sales productivity in 2020 grew by 93%
RM activation % in 2020 increased by 14%
Sales activity level of Front-line sales teams as well as Specialists increased as measured by # of client meetings
Sales pitching and customer engagement abilities of the team were enhanced
New Marketing and Training material was adopted
The envisaged “LEAP” happened by the end of the Project!