International Software company

An International CRM software firm recognised its sales performance was falling behind its competitors.

PACE carried out a series of ‘insight' meetings with staff and a selection of clients. It became apparent that the firm had a technical bias to its culture and did not have business development at the heart of the business. It also became apparent that new business salespeople from a technical background resorted to out dated sales techniques that depended on features based selling and closing techniques that sometimes made customers feel uncomfortable. Even though their technical solution was often considered more advanced than competitors, the sales approach gave the impression that the company was only interested in making a one off sale rather than building a long term profitable business relationship.

The next stage of the project exposed all new business sales people, account managers and carefully selected technical department managers to a series of intensive two-day workshop designed to build on their knowledge of the skills and behaviours of winning business.  The programme ‘Selling at a Strategic Level' considered the psychology of selling to senior buyers and introduced the PACES™ approach to consultative selling.

A further series of coaching workshops focused on building real business development plans using the PACE Pipeline^TM model. The action plans from these sessions included marketing and credibility building initiatives designed to build the firms profile in several new business sectors.

Implementation ‘surgeries' followed to ensure that the business development plans were kept on track.

The return on investment for the firm has been significant.  A more consultative approach to sales resulted in winning a high value contract and business development is back at the heart of the business alongside technical ability.

The CEO commented "The PACE approach now differentiates us from the competition because we are now so much more professional in how we sell' 
 

Design Agency

A small, 30 employee agency, with an excellent reputation for creative design was performing well with existing clients and decided to focus effort on growth.  A growth target was set with the incentive that all staff would be taken for a long weekend to Paris if the target was achieved.

Three months later and after losing a number of potential new clients to competitors, the management team recognised that the firm's business winning skills were not as advanced as their creative design skills. Feedback from clients also suggested that sometimes the design solutions were offered before the firm's staff fully understood the project brief.

PACE was introduced by a mutual client and following a series of insight meetings with the firm's staff a series of weekly half day workshops was developed.
 

The workshops (based on the PACE Accelerating Profitable Growth programme) initially introduced a project management approach to business development in order to develop a managed approach to marketing and business development activity. There followed coaching workshops with small groups that focused on business development meetings and how to ensure that any solution presented matched exactly the requirement of a potential client. The workshops included action planning to implement the new learning.
 

The results of the new approach to developing business were experienced almost immediately when a design project for a major food retailer was won. The client commenting that they had been impressed by how well the brief had been understood and interpreted. Other new business wins resulted in that weekend in Paris for all staff.