How we helped 20 document management dealers increase their annual sales by 20% in a market that was growing by 5%.
We did a pilot program for the U.S. distribution division of a multi-national maker of FAX and document management hardware. We worked with 20 of their dealers, in various locations across the country. The industry was growing at an annual rate of 5%, as were all 20 dealers. Their sales closing rates after making the short list of potential vendors were almost identical – around 25%.
There was unanimous agreement among all the dealers. If they could somehow double their growth rate from 5% to 10% they would be ecstatic.
We looked at their culture, specifically the roles and relationships between their sales and their service/tech support groups, vis-à-vis their customer interactions. We looked at their values – particularly around teamwork (one of their core values) and compared that definition to how they acted with each other and with their prospects.
We helped them make some cultural changes regarding the roles, interactions and sales tactics in presentations between tech support people and sales reps. We helped them reshape their presentations, included a tech person on every presentation, taught the teams some new presentation techniques. We helped them understand and strengthen the connection between their culture, their values and their sales tactics.
The results: The Increased average annual increase in sales for all 20 dealers as a result of all of the above was 20%. Ecstasy times 2.