Sales Training Success: CustomerCentric Selling® methodology helps Solutions II increase revenue and profitability by more than 22%.
Key Player
VP of Sales & Marketing
Goals
Tony Testolini, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Solutions II, first became introduced to Gary Walker, co-founder of CustomerCentric Selling®, when he attended a Software Sales Bootcamp conducted by CustomerCentric CustomerCentric Selling®. Tony defined Solution II’s goal to be to improve sales and revenue performance through the introduction of a consistent, repeatable sales process.
Current Situation
Tony and Gary identified a list of reasons why so few of Solution II’s sellers were achieving their goals:
- Salespeople brought with them their own sales process and used the processes with varying degrees of success.
- Salespeople were comfortable selling low-margin ‘boxes’, but found it difficult to sell the high-margin consulting and planning services.
- Salespeople were more comfortable talking product features with end users and unable to converse about business goals and issues with the ultimate decision makers.
Capabilities Needed
Tony explained that he needed a way to:
- Implement a repeatable sales process that each salesperson could learn and feel comfortable using, as well as provide a process that he could coach and use to manage his reps.
- Help his salespeople avoid getting trapped into hardware feature and price comparisons.
- Prepare his salespeople to discuss business issues that would allow them to position their full suite of higher margin consulting services.
- Translate highly technical storage features and service capabilities into measurable business value that could be attained by their prospects.
CustomerCentric Selling® provided Solution II with these capabilities when Tony’s staff attended a CustomerCentric Selling® workshop.
Results
In the nine months following their training, Solution II’s average sales cycle time was reduced by 17%, average transaction size increased by 11%, and both revenue and profitability increased more than 22%.
Through implementing the CustomerCentric Selling® methodology, Tony attributes these increases in a soft economy to his team’s new found ability to engage senior-level executives in business level discussions, turning their products and services into recognizable business value, and then increasing the services content of their sales transactions. Additionally, externally measured customer satisfaction ratings improved from 85% to 92%.
Customer Closeup
Solutions-II, Inc. is a leading provider of data storage management, disaster recovery planning and consulting services. Founded in 1992 by two data storage professionals, Solutions-II has dedicated itself to helping clients design, implement and effectively optimize IT infrastructures (storage and server strategies) to support real-time access to business critical data on any platform, at any point in time. Clients include Gart Sports, Geneva Pharmaceuticals, Hollywood Entertainment, and O.C. Tanner.
Recognized as storage and server consolidation experts for the Rocky Mountain, Pacific Northwest and Southwest regions of the United States, the company holds numerous industry designations, including IBM Premier business partner.
More information on Solutions II can be found at www.solutions-ii.com
If you have questions about this client, please contact Gary Walker at gwalker@customercentric.com.
Client Benefits:
- Reduced length of sales cycle by 17%
- Average transaction size increased by 11%
- Both revenue and profitability increased by more than 22%
- Customer satisfaction ratings jumped from 85% to 92%
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 Raython have deployed CCS® worldwide. For more information, vist www.customercentric.com, or call Jill Perez at 800.993.1228, ext.706.