Business Issue
Due to organizational growth and changing buying behaviors, this public safety organization specializing in the oil and gas sectors needed to embed a new customer-centric sales approach. The key business issues were best articulated by the Head of Training and Education: “We sell services to inspect pipelines and other industry assets and are an established market leader in that field, but we are innovating all the time and have new markets we want to move into. A different approach was required to sell products and services outside of our standard portfolio and win new business. It was our strategy to move to a more consultative selling approach to build better ongoing relationships with our customers.”
Solution Summary
While sellers had fantastic technical knowledge, they needed to develop a greater commercial mindset and become trusted advisors to their customers, shifting focus from product selling to problem-solving with the customer. To realize this new desired approach, the organization worked with Wilson Learning to embed a solid sales framework and equip their salespeople with skills to prospect and better qualify opportunities, consult with customers and add value throughout the buying process, and conduct win-win negotiations. Sales managers also gained coaching skills to further support and reinforce the approach.
Outcomes
- A 10% increase in sales was attributed to the new approach.
- The Head of Training and Education shared: “We aren’t interested in quick fixes; we believe in working in partnership toward long-term success. Wilson Learning had the years of experience, worldwide presence, and sales training expertise we were looking for. This was never just a tick-box training exercise for us, and we know our people constantly use what they have learned.”
- Leadership reported improved customer interactions. As reported by the Head of Distribution, APAC: “To begin with, there was some skepticism that facilitators who didn’t have an engineering background would be able to teach the new approach, but the content was so close to our real challenges and used technical information so everyone could relate to it. I now see our salespeople taking more time in the Discovery phase rather than jumping to a technical solution.”