Professional Sales Training

Large Electrical Safety company needs more BDMs to sell their services and they want to diversify into the HVAC market with no prior experience and no trained BDMs and they want to achieve it with as little expenditure as possible...

What to do?

"Never tell me that the sky's the limit, when there are footprints on the moon!"
The Challenge

" Talent hits a target no one else can hit, genius hits a target no one else can see"

  • We met with the board of Directors and listened to their company history, successes and failures and their immediate requirement to gain new BDMs in the northern part of England to expand their business in this area. Moreover they expressed an urgent desire to invest into the  profitable HVAC industry which would be a natural addition to their UK service offer, but felt that they lacked the experience, knowledge and confidence to deliver in the same industry leading way that they currently excelled at within Electrical Safety.
  • We discussed their current business model and explored various scenarios to achieve the desired expansion and additional HVAC business opportunity.
  • We used our extensive experience to suggest that we worked along side them within the business as an Electrical Safety BDM to gain insider knowledge re; how the Sales and Telesales team worked together currently, inherent skills and talents already in place but not utilised and how HVAC BDM training would be received and implemented.
  • We, through the guise of an Electrical Safety BDM worked with their customer base in the Northern Region to determine the appetite for HVAC industry service and support by offering the service (via our trusted partner network directly  employed by the Electrical Safety client) which was well received, projects priced for and orders received. The works went very well which supported the boards desire to expand into the market and our sales approach/pricing strategy/delivery to achieve it.
  • Our Electrical Safety sales alone outstripped every other BDM within the company, in some months better than Regional sales combined! The BDMs were good but we had experience and connections working for us. When we started successfully selling HVAC services, then everyone wanted in! Which is how we had planned it...
"The best way to sell yourself to others is first sell the others to yourself"
  • We already had identified that the skills required to sell HVAC service and maintenance/installation was already within the organisation and put forward a training programme to teach the Telesales, BDMs, Regional Managers and Directors to successfully introduce this service across their respective regions. The extra overhead cost was negligible compared to their original budget plan and would allow all to enjoy more business opportunities and larger bonuses!
"If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don't have to manage them"

What We Did

"Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognise them"

  • We formulated a plan to train the Telesales, BDMs, Regional Managers at the same time (the Directors were easily able enough to understand the business model and basic legal requirements, training courses were quickly booked to enhance their knowledge and service desk staff recruited to bolster effective delivery).
  • The training programme was presented during a special meeting for all involved in the copious meeting/training room at Head Office, there was the usual fear of change and low confidence from various employees at all levels, but as with all sales professionals the opportunity to have another income stream and fat bonuses soon overcame any trepidation.
  • We explained the differences between Electrical Safety and HVAC, especially the fact that the service and maintenance regimes were carried out annually and not three or five yearly as they are in Electrical Safety (Swimming Pools and Residential EICR etc are carried out annually, but this is a small part of their overall business) and that repairs, replacement and new bespoke installations came much more regularly in HVAC than they were used to. Then we explained the enormous similarities within the two disciplines, much more so than the differences (this revelation was planned to be realised by the employees, and it soon was, couldn't have gone any better!)
  • They were onboard, now the training began with a slight change to the electrical safety script and the expected overcoming sales objections answers list, alongside some easily to remember regulation prompts for the Telesales Team to bolster their authority with the client when booking appointments, The BDM and Regional Managers were trained together in the training room over the course of a week, incorporating slight changes to their basic script, more purposeful legislation prompts and the dreaded role play ( we made sure that humour was involved and even we took a ribbing to lower the uncertainty/fear of failure threshold - we exampled sales meetings conducted the "wrong way" to illustrate how not to do it, how things could go wrong and invited suggestions from the Sales Team on what to put right, no idea, no matter how uninformed was received negatively but spun back to them in a positive way).
  • We stayed with the Telesales Team and made a few calls with existing and prospective clients to illustrate that the call wasn't much different to their current one and stated that if they felt that the client was stretching their scant knowledge to just own up that they didn't know the answer, but would come back to them shortly, they could then refer to us and build knowledge as a team going forward, this lowered their initially reluctance and they were soon humming along with their usual exemplary professionalism.
  • We did the same with the Field Sales Team (BDMs and Regional Managers), though we attended sales meetings with them where they could see that the presentation was very similar to the ones they were used to, they could refer any questions received from the client, which weren't included on the expected sales objections answers list, back to us and we would furnish the entire team with the answers.
  • We assisted the Directors in recruiting an office Support Team to speak with the various members of the Sales Teams and contact customers as required to build the necessary confidence and relationships to move the sale over the line and deliver the service/maintenance/repair/installation correctly, efficiently and profitably. This in turn increased confidence (and the wages) of the various Sales Teams exponentially and give their customers a reliable service which grew quickly.

"In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can"

What We Achieved

"One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar" 

  • Yes we went through the usual Conscious Competence Learning Matrix; "unconscious incompetence (lack of awareness stage), conscious incompetence (awareness stage), conscious competence (step by step stage) and unconscious competence (skilled stage)".
  • Both Sales Teams smashed their respective targets, some went on to promotion within the company.
  • We identified two Telesales Team members who were easily skilled enough to become BDMs, we took them out of the office and trained them in Field Sales, they excelled, so much in fact that the were beating the regular BDMs!
  • Months and months of hard work by all but the results are a joy to experience...
"So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new highs"