 |
How to Execute Your New Sales Strategy
by Advantage Co-founder Glenn Jackson
When worldwide business solutions giant Kinko’s recently gathered nearly 800 account managers, regional sales managers, and regional operations managers for a national sales conference in Hawaii, the company didn’t just describe its new sales strategy. To make sure people were getting the point, Kinko’s used an experiential business simulation to make the strategy tangible by having the sales team practice executing against it.
“We had a new solutions selling strategy but we had not installed or trained to it,” explains Mark Little, Vice President of Operations Services. “We needed to install a common go-to-market sales process.” The company wanted to help the entire sales team understand the new strategy and gain sales momentum by developing major pipeline opportunities—fast. It also wanted to launch an internal sales Web site, share company best practices, and create better teamwork between sales and operations people.
 $20 Million Kinko’s Bucks
The powerful and unique sales simulation, created by Advantage alliance partner The Real Learning Company, had to happen in record time. Little says, “Real Learning’s ability to collect data, write, develop, and beta test the simulation in advance of the sales conference was critical. This was a very rapid turnaround, and they met the deadline.”
The competitive simulation included a suitcase full of $20 million worth of “Kinko’s Bucks” that hit the tarmac in Hawaii along with custom CDs and more than 14,000 component pieces. During the 1.5-day simulation, participants worked their way through Kinko’s’ new sales process model while selling to the Human Resources Department of a company that was a typical target of every account manager’s portfolio.
The simulation surfaced rich discussion at critical decision points across Kinko’s’ entire customer relationship cycle, and also incorporated company best practices. Little recalls, “People recognized how much value there was in sharing best practices. Many of them came away saying, ‘I’m going to engage operations colleagues early and often to broaden the sale and ensure better quality for the customer.’” Each table team was also provided with a computer and CDs, developed by Granite Technologies, that introduced the new internal sales Web site.
Managers Play Key Role
During the simulation, regional managers from both the sales and operations sides performed in their real-life coaching and managing roles. One said, “It was an incredible way for me to get insight into my people in one concentrated period. I saw the effectiveness of my people in a very realistic environment.”
“The participation of the regional sales managers was critical for two reasons,” says Little. “First, our sales force is making a major transformation from order taking to solution selling, and that requires a lot of coaching. Second, it gave the sales managers a chance to assess the performance and the development needs of individuals on their team.”
Regional operations managers, who run Kinko’s’ 1,100 branches, deepened their understanding of the sales job. “Sales people also got the chance to build better working relationships with the operations people. That was a major theme of the sales conference.”
At the conclusion of the simulation, account managers reconvened in their real-life sales teams and created sales pipeline plans that identified more than $30 million of new business opportunities.
Hitting the Sales Plan
How do you measure the benefit of a simulation? “After the conference, we hit our sales plans for each of the following two months and also for the quarter,” says Little. “These results are not all attributable to the learning experience, but it was a big contributor.”
From the participants’ point of view, the Real Learning experience was also a smash success. Little says, “Both sales managers and sales people who have worked with Kinko’s for years, and worked for other Fortune 500 companies, have stated unequivocally that this was the best training of their lives and the best Kinko’s sales conference they ever attended. In fact, this is probably the best sales intervention I’ve ever experienced.” Because of the overwhelming success of the first experience, Kinko’s will soon repeat the simulation, tailored to the operations side, for 1,000 branch managers.
“The message is that you really can use learning to behaviorally drive a new strategy,” says Little. “Unless you experience it, strategy is just a bunch of words on paper. This learning experience was able to take a concept and make it tangible and concrete for sales people in ways that had a real impact on the bottom line.”
|
|
SalesTEAM maximizes team-based major account selling. |
|
