Increasing Revenue Per Customer
The Client
A leading magazine publisher.
The Aims
To develop skills with a large sales force to increase yield per customer without changing the published rate structure.
Issues
This client operated in tough market conditions where customers were regularly forcing salespeople to reduce rates below the published tariff to secure business. In order to meet challenging budgets the client decided that rather than sell to more customers salespeople needed to increase yield per customer. At the same time the client recognised that it needed to preserve its brand’s reputation for quality in the face of hardening customer buying behaviour.
This situation was complicated by the differing skill levels, experience and competencies within a sales force of more than 90 people. Many salespeople felt that the existing pattern of sales behaviour “was the only way.”
The Solution
We developed a series of short “best practice” workshops that were attended by all salespeople. Each group was pre-selected to reflect the differing levels of sales competency with the sales force as a whole.
During the session we emphasised that the group already had the skills necessary to meet the challenge. Our role was to facilitate the exchange of best practice.
As a consequence of each session participants developed a “Sales Tactics Action Plan” where they undertook to experiment with newly learned tactics on their customer base.
Feedback Evaluation
The workshops received good feedback. The more experienced felt that they energised and improved motivation, while the less experienced felt better equipped to handle a variety of situations.
Follow up
To ensure that the levels of enthusiasm and learning from the workshops are kept up, the client continues a mentoring and coaching programme throughout the sales force.
