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How Sales Transformation and Strategic Execution Achieved Remarkable Success
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skilful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
- William A. Foster, U.S. Medal of Honor winner
Scaling a business is challenging, particularly in industries with negative media attention due to scams and illegal activities. This case study demonstrates how a sales organization achieved 700% growth in 10 months through incremental adjustments in strategy and execution.
The client aimed to build a reputable & scalable presence in the emerging field of vocational skilling and international employment. However, in this unregulated industry, dominated by dubious local agents, hindered their progress. Despite an exceptional reputation and unique value proposition, the sales team faced difficulties converting prospects to clients, impeding growth at the desired rate.
While the founders achieved positive results through their passion and connections, the sales process depended on individuals rather than standardized procedures, due to a lack of active leadership driving execution and daily operations.
Challenges
When we started our engagement, after absorbing the information from various stakeholders we identified the following challenges within the sales team:
Lack of Intent & Effort
Inadequate planning
Lack of customer understanding
Insufficient sales & product knowledge
Unavailability of standardized process & credible data
Solutions
The team we encountered had been together for just under three months and operated directly under the CEO from London, as a result of instability within the sales leadership team in India. By stepping in and applying a range of strategic and tactical measures, we successfully transformed the sales process as stated below.
Daily Huddle & Resource Allocation
Our initial foundational step was to implement daily morning huddles as a standard practice. The primary goal was to address the sales team's concerns and discreetly introduce fundamental sales practices, such as fostering accountability through daily input and output commitments and reviewing commitments made the previous day.
Resources were re-allocated to projects based on competencies, improving motivation and performance. A phased sales hierarchy was established for cost control and outcome focus, enabling more attention to product and sales training.
Sales Pitch
Through these daily huddles, we identified additional challenges, such as trust, lead quality, customer brand awareness, and the absence of reliable historical data. These issues required intervention beyond sales and focused on specific areas of improvement within the identified challenges.
Despite the founders' strong reputation in the industry, the sales team had not been leveraging it to build trust with customers. Moreover, the company's services offered customers a significant status change by enabling them to move to an international destination with work visas and potential permanent residency opportunities. Consequently, it was crucial to emphasize the distinctiveness of this opportunity.
Therefore, a new sales pitch was created highlighting the strong background of the founders, the legitimacy of the opportunity and:
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Fueling Aspiration
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Cultivating Pride
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Creating FOMO
Partner Training Centers
Additionally, we chose to expand our partner distribution network to enhance visibility and accessibility, particularly at the last mile. This strategy allowed us to establish trust and foster familiarity, especially in South India where the company had no representation. We identified strategic locations to set up Partner Training Centers (PTCs), which facilitated the regional skilling of the candidates and significantly improved mobilisation & sourcing outcomes.
Sales Operations Function
The customer lifecycle spanned 12-18 months and involved numerous interdepartmental collaborations throughout the process. The sales team served as the initial point of contact for customers, hence their continued involvement was required throughout the journey. However, this resulted in a significant occupation of the sales team's time being devoted to managing the relationships and coordinating on regular basis. To ensure the sales team is focused on acquiring new customers, the sales operations function was established, which facilitated the proper structure for scalability and efficiency.
Sales Enablement
To strengthen the sales team and foster growth, a product marketing function was created to enhance brand visibility and recognition. The team also employed numerous automation tools, enabling us to gain more profound insights into the team and customers, leading to improved sales efficiency and a rise in organic inbound leads.
Data analytics and customer support functions were introduced to establish a sustainable feedback loop and optimize the customer experience. This allowed us to identify the buyers, their motivations, and the timing of their purchases. As a result, the sales team became more adept at engaging with potential customers.
Since the decision-making process involved multiple stakeholders, sales was a complicated process. Therefore, the team was trained to nurture customers and personally engage with them beyond the efforts of the marketing team to reduce ghosting.
During the training, emphasis was given to the team to know their customers thoroughly by understanding the background of the customer, the stakeholders involved in the decision-making and the motivation behind their decision to work abroad.
Initiatives such as video call with the decision-makers and other stakeholders were introduced to establish trust and transparency while assessing the seriousness of the customer to avail the services. The sales team was encouraged to conduct webinars to create their own personalized lead flow. Walk-in interviews & job fairs were organized, inviting customers to visit the client's office and meet other team members for on-spot offers, further enhancing the relationship-building process.
As the marketing and channel team's efforts began yielding results, there was a substantial increase in organic lead flow. To conserve the inside sales team's bandwidth, sales interns were recruited to qualify leads in bulk before passing them on to the sales team for closure. High-performing sales associates were given the opportunity to mentor and nurture these interns, allowing them to refine their leadership skills. Interns who demonstrated strong performance were offered the chance to join the team on a full-time basis.
Read in detail how we leveraged marketing & automation for sustainable growth here.
Feedback Loop
We established a robust feedback loop among the leadership, middle management, and associates to facilitate swift decision-making and expedited resolution of customer inquiries. While CRM tools like LeadSquared and telephony services from Exotel assisted us in gathering and tracking data, we developed custom dashboards to analyze and pinpoint areas for scaling and targeted intervention.
We employed various sales dashboards for data-driven discussions, closely monitoring team actions such as RNR, lead engagement, and follow-up durations, in addition to program-level performance. At the partner level, we evaluated engagement, business quality, and productivity. This approach allowed us to develop new KPIs, incentives, and accountability measures.
ACHIEVEMENTS
700% Growth in new customer acquisition in 10 months
Reduction in post-signup drop from 50% to <25%
LTV:CAC Ratio at 4.5X
Profitable growth with a ROI of 170%
100+ Partners nationwide with 6 PTC centers