How turning around a weak sales force ... with 2 cases I handled in my career

1. CASE STUDY PRESENTATION
Paris, 8 october 2009
TURNING
AROUND A WEAK
PERFORMING
A
ct
SALES TEAM
ua
lly
av
ai
la
bl
e
By Erik Van Rompay

2. WHO AM I ?
bl
e I am an interim
ila
lly
av
a
executive
a
tu
Ac specialised in
turning around
high-tech
companies
http://vanrompay.online.fr

3. I present today
2 CASES…
“it is full part of my
portfolio… but gives a
restricted view of my “360
degrees” turnaround activity”

4. CASE 1 : Retail company
(entertainment products)
SITUATION (view given by the board)
- sales revenue dropping since 2 years
- an old product line at the end of life
- new product line is a disaster (nobody wants it)
MY MISSION : restructure the activity so
the company can sell their new product line
Team = 9 sales people (+ 2 admin)

5. STEP 1 : AUDIT
AUDIT 1 : Market situation
- Pricing of the product lines (old & new)
- Comparison with the 2 main competitors
- Result : pricing + positioning are weak but OK
AUDIT 2 : Prospect Decision Criteria
Answering the question : Why does someone
want to buy with us ?
Brand name Sales Written Oral skills
and image relationship documents (& demo)
19% 28% 35% 18%

6. STEP 1 : AUDIT
RESULT :
- Brand name : poor as the company was a
newcommer (and did not deliver).
- Brand image : poor (the sales reps didn’t even
posses a presentation of the company)
- Sales relationship : poor (no methodology)
- Written documents : poor -> one A4 sheet with
only text to present the new product line
- Oral presentation : poor -> not prepared and
not consistent
- Team : 9 individual sales people so 9 different
styles to sell the products

7. AUDIT – case 1
AUDIT 3 : sales incentives
There was no sales incentive to sell the new
product line !
Even worse… the sales rep got 30% more
revenue by selling the old products !
AUDIT 4 : product quality
Poor delivery & badly packaged (not sexy
enough)
AUDIT 5 : Customer needs
OK (the first 2 users loved the new product)

8. ONCE
YOU KNOW
THE PROBLEM
YOU HAVE THE
SOLUTION

9. THE ACTION PLAN
STRUCTURING EDUCATE THE
THE SALES SALES REPS TO
CYCLE SELL THE NEW
PRODUCT-LINE
CREATING A CREATING OF
VISUAL A STRONG
IDENTITY SALES PITCH
Full Sales Documents Package
SOLVING OF
CREATING A REPACKAGING
THE
MARKET THE PRODUCT
INCENTIVES
RECOGNITION ISSUE
Newcommer = Higher Innovation
DELAY AUDIT+IMPLEMENTATION : 3 MONTHS
SALES ON SCOPE 3 MONTHS LATER

10. Also.. the 9 individual
sales people working
independently… became a
a united sales TEAM

11. CASE 2 : Internet Startup
SITUATION (view given by the board)
- sales revenue dropping fast since 6 months
- no software upgrade in the past 6 months
(unable to deliver new releases/bug repairs)
- “we” are too expensive so we don’t sell our
products at the right price (so request to do
heavy cost-cutting)
- Market with strong competition
MY MISSION : solve the problem
7 salespeople (+1 admin)

12. STEP 1 : AUDIT
AUDIT 1 : Market situation
- Pricing of the product line
- Comparison with the main competitors
Result : pricing + positioning are at market
average so OK (for the time being)
AUDIT 2 : Prospect Decision Criteria
Answering the question : Why does he want to
buy with us ?
Brand name Sales Written Oral skills
and image relationship documents (& demo)
19% 28% 35% 18%

13. AUDIT – case 2
RESULT :
- Brand name : Strong (so OK)
- Brand image : OK
- Sales relationship : poor (no methodology)
- Written documents : OK (just needed a slight
tuning)
- Oral presentation : OK
Main problem identified:
- no methodology to track prospects, neither to
identify the leads to track in priority

14. AUDIT – case 2
AUDIT 3 : sales incentives
In line so OK
AUDIT 4 : product quality
- Poor delivery
- Unstable product & unstable platform
AUDIT 5 : Customer needs/requirements
No time to execute
- Several board members confirmed the
product itself was perfect…

15. ONCE
YOU KNOW
THE PROBLEM
YOU HAVE THE
SOLUTION

16. THE ACTION PLAN…1
STRUCTURING LAUNCHING
THE SALES EDUCATE THE OF A QUICK-
CYCLE SALES REPS TO WIN to the
IDENTIFY REAL market as a
LEADS sign that the
IMPLEMENT
company was
SALES
CREATING OF again
REPORTING
A NEW SALES marketleader
PITCH …
SOLVING OF
THE O
COST N
TECHNICAL CUTTING
PROBLEMS
DELAY AUDIT+IMPLEMENTATION : 2 MONTHS
SALES DID INCREASE…. But not enough

17. AUDIT 2 – Alignment
As we did not execute
AUDIT 5 : Customer needs/requirements
We didn’t identify a major “sales” problem :
- all our documents and salespitch were made
for IT people (IT Directors, webmasters…) but
it was mainly Marketing and/or Sales people
that were deciding the purchase of our
product.
SOLUTION : reworking all documents AND all the
sales pitches to have, depending on the client and
the decission process, a different sales approach.

18. RESULT – case 2
Sales up by 70% after 6 months
The company catched up and sales numbers
were again on scope as defined in the 3 years
business plan.
To be noted : this all requested intensive changes …
and 5 of the 7 sales people left the company within
the year. This did not disturb the sales numbers
neither other activities in the company.

19. THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION
If you have any
question…
don’t hesitate
to email me…
@online.fr
vanrompay