What if the customer says yes and still doesn’t order?

Successful sales development works holistically with the sales organization. Our client, a medium-sized company that produces and sells components and complex industrial solutions worldwide, needed to significantly increase its sales and earnings after being spun off from a large group. There were also untapped opportunities in the sales territories and in cooperation with existing customers. The approach: It quickly became clear during the clarification of the assignment that the required support did not lie in rolling out a sales training course that focused on the sales staff’s argumentation skills and knowledge of the product benefits. In order to understand the complex challenges more precisely, the actual change support was preceded by an analysis phase in which the Movendo consultants were able to experience the sales organization through shadowing. Accordingly, we were present at meetings and coordination processes and visited the customer together with the sales force. Based on this insight into the actual complexity of the sales organization, a change project was initiated that corresponded to this complexity. “We have to develop from farmer to hunters!”. The change started directly with top management. In addition to the public messages for inter- and intranet communication, the personal messages of the board members were developed in order to appear authentic, personal and coordinated in direct contact. This gave rise to the slogan “We have to develop from farmer to hunters!” In order to support the actual change, namely to focus on new sales strategies in the future and with a new sales approach in which sales teams support the various contacts and decision-makers at the customer, all sales managers initially became co-creators in this process. They developed the final target structure of the sales teams and were simultaneously trained in their special leadership role, both in the change process itself and in the future sales approach. The main focus was on creating target-oriented framework conditions without detailed control of day-to-day sales activities in order to give the future sales teams more autonomy and entrepreneurial action. All sales employees worldwide were then trained within 12 months. They underwent a development process that included virtual interactions, individual transfer coaching and self-organized exchanges with their respective colleagues in addition to three face-to-face modules. Managers were given the responsibility of driving the actual change in the respective organization and supporting the implementation of the respective learning sequences in everyday life. In the regions of Germany, France, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and the USA, the development programmes for the approx. 200 sales employees were carried out directly by Movendo and additional trainers for the organization in Italy, Korea and China were familiarized with our approach as part of a train-the-trainer programme. The feedback on the efficiency and practical orientation of the training and coaching sessions repeatedly resulted in individual measures. The positive response in the company was noticeable everywhere. The result: As a result, the organization is successful today because the new sales approach – ensuring that decisions are made by the customer instead of persuading the customer – is supported and lived globally by the sales team, because the new structure of the sales teams successfully mirrors the structure of the customer teams and thus ensures a high level of connectivity, and at the same time the new salary systems and incentives also support this approach. Exactly as experienced in this project, we at Movendo stand for systemic sales development that creates the framework conditions for sales crews to work successfully on making decisions in the customer’s system.