Sales Training Success: Altia leverages CustomerCentric Selling® to achieve improved forecasting accuracy and better reach decision makers.
Key Player
CEO
Goals and Current Situation
Before engaging with CustomerCentric Selling®, Altia’s leadership team employed a hybrid sales process that integrated the individual experience and training of the management team – including Mike Juran, CEO of Altia — and the sales people, Paul de Curnou, Sales Director Consumer Products, and Mark Taylor, Sales Director North American Automotive. That sales approach proved to be highly inconsistent and lacked a common language. Mike Juran wanted to reduce the amount of time, money and effort spent on each sale, so that his sales team could handle more opportunities and ultimately close more business. Mike wanted to identify non-profitable opportunities as early as possible. Additionally, he wanted the entire team to speak the same language, rating sales opportunity stages (with evidence) in a consistent manner so that he could forecast with greater accuracy. Mike’s overall goal was to increase sales by 40% per year.
Capabilities Needed
Mike recognized the opportunities for improvement within Altia’s sales organization. He also realized that his sales team desperately needed a way to get beyond low level engineers (users) and get to managers and executives (decision makers). Their previous ad hoc methods and approach kept them stuck in the “demo then hope they buy” cycle. They needed to talk business goals, not engineering needs. This revelation became most evident when Altia started losing to competitors who had much more visibility at a high level in the organization. With these concerns in mind, Mike reached out to Gary Walker, Co-founder of CustomerCentric Selling®.
Mike had considered other reputable names in the sales training arena, but chose CustomerCentric Selling® because of the repeatable process-oriented method that drives measurable results. The CustomerCentric Selling® approach replaced the company’s former “wing it” tendencies with real tools and solutions – not just general sales concept discussion. CustomerCentric Selling® also appealed to Mike’s engineering and project management mindset.
Result
Since choosing CustomerCentric Selling®, Altia’s sales team has attended three workshop sessions. Armed with the CustomerCentric Selling® method, they have eliminated many opportunities at the early stage of the sales process — no longer wasting time and money. Additionally, Altia now approaches negotiations knowing what is important to the prospect, allowing them to successfully negotiate opportunities that meet the needs of both Altia and the buying organization. They have also worked up the chain of command by using these same tools, which includes a plan that requires access to power and clearly communicates Altia’s contributions (free or charged) during the sales process. Additionally, forecasting has become more accurate.
“Customer Centric Selling® makes a notable difference in our bottom line. It’s the foundation of our sales team and that’s why I keep sending people to the training. I wouldn’t repeatedly spend the time or money if it didn’t really work.”
–Michael Juran, CEO of Altia
Customer Closeup
Altia’s mission is to provide a cohesive, easy-to-use set of HMI (Human Machine Interface) development tools that help creative, customer-focused designers build and deliver great user interfaces. Altia’s tools are used from concept to final code, thus maximizing productivity and re-use. With Altia’s tools, manufacturers can deliver HMIs much faster while producing higher quality user interfaces. It is these high quality user interfaces that form the foundation of market-leading products.
Mike Juran is Altia’s CEO and also directs Altia’s overall sales effort. This effort includes leading international sales channels as well as direct U.S. salespeople. His goal is to increase sales by 40% year over year, with the help of CustomerCentric Selling®.
For more information, please visit: http://www.altia.com/
Results:
- Able to eliminate many opportunities earlier on in the sales process, saving valuable time and resources
- Negotiate better deals with use of the tools provided by the CCS™ sales process
- Better work up the decision maker chain with use of the Sequence of Events that requires access to power while outlining directly what Altia can contribute
- More accurate forecasting
About CustomerCentric Selling®
CustomerCentric Selling® (CCS®) is a proven methodology for predictably improving revenue growth and sales performance. Founded in 2002, CCS® helps clients worldwide to implement repeatable, auditable and scalable sales processes that, when combined with Sales Ready Messaging®, guides marketing and sales to have meaningful conversations with customers and prospects. This results in winning high-value deals, retaining and growing client relationships and improving the predictability and accuracy of sales forecasts. CustomerCentric Selling® is regularly named to the Top Sales Training Companies list. Clients such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Business Objects, Rockwell Automation, EMC and Raytheon have deployed CCS® worldwide. For more information, visit www.customercentric.com, or call Jill Perez at +1.800.993.1228, ext 706.