Sales effectiveness for business development and consultants
Gemserv has more than doubled in turnover to over £20 million per annum with a diversified portfolio of clients, contracts and services. Following a Key Account Management training programme and account retention workshop they were also able to secure multi-year renewal of large contracts worth £14m.
SBR Consulting engaged with Gemserv at C-suite level in a 3-phase project working with business development, sales and consultants in the organisation to develop their confidence and capability at different parts of their sales process from opportunity generation through to account development. SBR trained a variety of staff from across the business on sales pipeline, critical success factors and high-performance sales enhancing tactics and systematic account planning. SBR coached the delegates over a period of seven months to ensure adoption, and equipped Gemserv’s own trainers to onboard new team members with the techniques to ensure lasting success.
“My vision for the training programme we developed with SBR was to empower our consultant team to identify new opportunities in existing accounts and elsewhere. SBR’s combination of systematic approaches has helped colleagues secure £millions of renewal revenue and pipeline.”
David Newell Exec Director of Gemserv Limited
WHAT DID THE CLIENT WANT TO ACHIEVE?
Gemserv are fast growing and successful but recognise that any sustainable business must be built on a proactive approach to acquiring, retaining and developing customers. Helping the team to feel comfortable and confident in their approach to finding business helps the overall business to grow. Gemserv wanted to invest in developing their consultants to winning new business and develop current accounts alongside their delivery responsibilities.
WHAT ISSUES WERE THEY FACING?
The issues varied across the five different business units but at the heart of each was the need for a clear structure and methodology to support sales effectiveness. The client wanted to turn their consultants into a rich source of leads to grow the pipeline and change the negative perception across the business of ‘selling’. The business has recently been acquired by a European professional services business leading to a need for even more rapid EBITDA growth.
THE RESULTS
SBR added clear focus to the consultant teams and allowed them to embed their new knowledge into the on-boarding and growth of the company. Now the business is winning work more frequently and selling is part of their day-to-day role. The practical training formed effective habits within the business which resulted in a more successful outcome. The consultants are now going into client meetings with new skills and a sales methodology that makes them feel more prepared to win business – confidence up from 46% to 74%. Confidence of the account team that they would secure renewal of the £14m contracts was 51% prior to the SBR workshop, renewal was achieved within 3 months.
SBR’S APPROACH
SBR ran multiple programmes based on laying down a structured methodology for client engagement throughout the sales pipeline.