The challenge

A global services company wanted to elevate their sales teams conversations by equipping them to move outside of procurement, and "connect the dots" with marketing, product development, and creative teams in their target accounts.

The client had been losing to the competition and seen margins eroding for years. Through their analysis, they found that 80% of their reps were focused on selling to procurement, and winning on price.  Recently implemented pricing controls meant that sellers were losing more deals and not filling the top o the funnel. 

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The goal of this effort was to work with a partner management consulting firm to analyze the impact of a newly transformational sales strategy on legacy sellers with an average tenure of 10+ years with the company.   The CEO realized that a new strategy to sell to marketing would create a lot of challenges with existing sellers and he didn't want to lose their wisdom of the industry, their customer, or their services they provided to long-standing customers.   He also new the new strategy would require capturing new accounts and selling "the new way" with a new team of SDRs and hunters.

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The client turned to Growth Matters to determine how to land the new sales strategy. We worked to define the roles of existing and new sellers. We also worked with top-performers to understand how they were reaching new buying centers (marketing) and how they were positioning services and solutions to improve win rates while overcoming objections with their legacy procurement relationships. Through our design, implementation, and support of a sales kickoff program, we introduced the new buyer network, including the main opportunity to sell against.  This kickoff served as a "pre-work" for a 2 day immersive, simulation-driven sales training program that included competitions with GVPs and RVPs who were prepped to represent the new buyer network.  A safe environment created an opportunity for team learning, and positive energy through learning by doing. A supportive coaching framework with regular coaching by Growth Matters team members (to front line managers) anchored the new behaviors in order to overcome internal muscle memory.

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Result: 400% increase in pipeline, 350 new marketing contacts, 100+ successful meetings with marketing executives, decreased sales cycles and improved margins yielding 20+ million in new sales including 3 multi-year contracts.