Business Issue
Known for industry innovation and leadership, this insurance company thrives on change as a competitive advantage. For 83 years, this organization has prided itself in “. . . imagining the unimaginable and doing the impossible.” Their strong desire to be number 1 has created many “First in the Industry” designations.
Yet, competitive pressure continued to challenge their business. Senior leaders realized they needed a new competitive advantage that would require a change in their current sales culture. Creating a singular, foundational sales methodology was vital for this organization to achieve the goals they had set forth.
Solution
The CEO stated, “In insurance, the foundation of success is trust.” With this in mind, the organization selected Wilson Learning to help them define and align organizational goals and values. Wilson Learning’s consultants worked side-by-side with their SMEs and key stakeholders to fully understand their business. Wilson Learning recommended The Counselor Salesperson™, a sales methodology that uses a problem-solving consultative selling process and helps salespeople transition from simply making transactions to solving real business problems. The Counselor Mindset builds profitable long-term customer relationships, resulting in improved customer focus and service.
The synergistic partnership between this organization’s Learning and Development team and Wilson Learning consultants has resulted in a custom learning journey that has created performance improvement and increased sales results across sales roles and levels. The following recaps actions included in the long-term training initiative.
In 2012, the client and Wilson Learning collaborated as “one team” to develop increasingly customized content to match job roles, adding industry-specific scenarios and terminology with an eye on practical application.
Committed to developing their sales teams, this organization recognized the importance of coaching to reinforce and sustain the learning. In 2016, this client upskilled the sales managers to coach to the attained skills from their custom sales program. A comprehensive reinforcement and sustainment component provided the coaches with access to learning materials, planners, tips, and a coaching playbook.
As business became more complex and sellers worked with multiple decision-makers, this client again turned to Wilson Learning in 2018 to recommend and design an advanced sales training program. The custom training deepens the ability of the salesperson to make strategic business calls, understand customer needs and agents’ business and issues, communicate with decision-makers, and build solutions that address business priorities.
Over the years, this organization understood the value in certifying internal facilitators to provide the training and coach to the skills. To date, more than 20 certified client facilitators are committed to training and motivating others to learn.
The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly interrupted businesses in many ways. This client came to Wilson Learning and stated, “We will not let COVID stop our training and development.” Together, through a high-trust, collaborative relationship, their custom face-to-face programs were transformed into virtual learning in a short time period.
Outcome
To date, more than 10,000 sales professionals and managers have adopted the highly customized foundational-through-advanced sales language and processes.
This organization’s top-down commitment to embracing a culture of high trust throughout the sales organization has created continued success. With this trust, salespeople uncover business needs, build better relationships, and gain more preferred business.