A global consumer packaged goods company sought a sales training partner who could also provide culture change, relationship skills building, and a total revamp of their existing sales process.
Through methods such as identification of subject matter experts, field visits with sales reps, interviews with the executive team, and review of organizational structure and history, Janek gained total fluency in the business situation and practices – facilitating the design and delivery of a comprehensive, holistic sales training solution.
About the Client
The client is a major global consumer packaged goods company with approximately 5,000 employees. They are one of the two largest organizations in their industry – amassing an entire third of the market share. Three of their product lines rank in the Top 5 in their category – capturing a combined 30% of category US sales.
The Challenge
The company realized that its long-standing approach would no longer work, due to losing market share to competitors. Key issues identified included a disconnect between the brand, the products, and the people (all three strengths, but none that worked in unison); an established culture of “contractual selling”, whereby sales reps enforced contract terms and used a one-size-fits-all sales approach; and a need for the sales organization to develop critical thinking and analytical skills.
Furthermore, the vast sales organization was split in two categories – tenured sales reps who were comfortable with the contractual selling model, and inexperienced new hires – completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
The Solution
Because this was such a vast project that would require multiple facets and phases, the client could not settle for just sales training (though that was a critical component). Instead, they needed a partner who could also provide change management and relationship building skills – all within a framework tailored and customized to the client’s vertical.
An extended, complete research process that included identification of subject matter experts, field visits with sales reps, interviews with the executive team, and review of organizational structure and history was conducted by Janek. Through the total effort of these methods, Janek was able to gain a complete understanding of the client relationships, brands, products, and current sales processes.
A fully customized Critical Selling Skills (CSS) program was developed. In the pre-training phase, Janek and the client created buy-in via grassroots internal marketing – including an extensive introduction to the CSS program by the Executive VP of Trade Marketing to over 3,000 sales reps at the client’s bi-annual national sales meeting.
The training consisted of dozens of two-day workshops in five cities over a three month period, and was supported with post-training job aids and reinforcement tools that were designed and subsequently distributed to every level of the organization to support ongoing internal coaching efforts.
The Results
The training was a massive success – culminating in tangible high ROI, the desired cultural and behavioral changes, and overwhelming praise from participants and the executive team. Attendees remarked the vocabulary of the workshops was not only accurate, but the facilitators truly knew the client’s business and could have been mistaken for longtime employees of the organization.
Post-Training Results
792
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96
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96
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