The client: a $4B division of a listed corporation specialising in Wholesale & Retail. The division is a combination of B2B sales (wholesale), B2C sales across several retail brands, service areas, marketing, and procurement and it includes 200+ people.
The challenges when we started working with them late 2017-early 2018:
- The business had acquired a mix of companies over the years and there was no integration, no common language, no consistency, etc.
- The business was in flux and sales and share price were in decline.
- There was poor customer retention.
- Several key brands were being disrupted.
- Sales and services teams were not trained to deliver to customer centric professional standards.
- There were silos and factions, and a cynical culture.
- There was no strategy, purpose, or defined value propositions; no common sales and service framework, processes, tools or templates.
- There had been several attempts to fix the situation over several years and all failed.
What did Barrett do?
We listened to senior management, understood their situation and then introduced them to a Human- Centred Sales Systems Approach that would lead to sustainable sales and service success and create the change they wanted to see. It included the following key elements:
- It was leader led & inclusive – with people being creators of their own future – Everyone was invited to and participated in the process of designing their future
- It allowed different areas and brands within the business to maintain their integrity and style while sharing a common framework and integrated processes
- It created common standards and tools that work for diverse types of roles while still providing a consistent, structurally sound and integrated sales and service framework
- It developed confidence and competence within individuals and teams to create space and psychological safety for customers thus enabling sales and services team members to deliver the right outcomes for their customers and the organisation
- It provided a consistent follow up process to create sustainable change, evolution and mastery that embeds learning and delivers real sustainable results and elevated NPS scores
- It created a Learning Culture that continues to provide ongoing coaching and support to meet the minimum standards of excellence
- It became the core human operating system that united everyone around a common purpose, values and principles about ‘how we sell and service around here’
Results – a healthy sales & business ecosystem:
- Within 2 years, sales went from minus 10% to plus 15%, and sales are still tracking north in 2021
- In 2020, despite COVID, sales continued trending upwards steadily around 12%, with competitors in decline by 30%
- There’s been a dramatic increase in new customers flowing in and customer satisfaction
- The business orients itself around a clear strategy, purpose and on-the-same-page decision making which initially achieved very early on in the change process
- The business is now engineered for ‘How we sell & service around here’ with minimum standards of excellence, integrated processes, and a common set of tools & resources
- Dramatic uplift in ‘learn to earn curve’ and satisfaction for individuals and teams
- Strong, unified and committed leadership team at national and state levels
- Overall sense of relief and clarity underpinned by purpose and a united culture from top down and bottom up
Testimonial
“The change has been outstanding. Two years ago I couldn’t have imagined that Sales would be in such great shape already by now.
In 2 years we’ve gone from minus 10% to plus 15% growth. I thought it would take years but here we are now with a fantastic sales team, sales infrastructure and processes, strategy and culture that is growing and making a huge difference to our business and our clients.
As an accountant, I knew very little about sales but Barrett’s Sales System, Strategy & Operations Framework and the Barrett team have steered us in the right direction.”
Exec GM of Australian $4B publicly listed company, December 2019
The Future
We are still working with this client, adding in different teams and roles to include them on this transformation journey of everybody lives by selling something’’ including procurement, customer service, marketing, merchandising, professional services, etc.
This Human- Centred Sales Systems Approach has now been adopted across other business divisions in this group and has become standard operating procedure to transform businesses, sales results, teams, and customer relationship for the better, now and sustainably into the future.
If you want to implement your own systems approach to sales and service, please contact us or phone 03 9533 0000.
Remember everybody lives by selling something.
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