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Client Interviews

Selected interview quotes from our satisfied customers

Joe Hines, CEO, Voice Data Networks Danita gets Joe onto the High Road

Joe’s a pragmatist, and he measures success in numbers. Prior to implementing the new recruiting process, VDN had hired nine sales people over a 27-month period who were all terminated. They produced $675,000 in sales and $129,000 in margin. Using the new process, VDN hired one sales manager and four sales people. The replacement team has produced $1.168 million in revenue and $327,000 in gross margin. In 77% less time, with 55% fewer people, VDN has garnered 57% more revenue.

Hiring process of Director of Sales

“Our market had changed dramatically, and we were spending too much money, time and energy hiring sales people who weren’t working out. So I realized the old ways no longer worked. After all, you don’t go four-wheeling with a Chevette..”

“Danita helped us develop a better process. First, we pinned down the attributes we needed for successfully selling in our market. From there, she assessed our sales force, using an objective tool that is the foundation of our screening, interviewing and hiring process. Danita helped the new sales director get on board and helped our sales people minimize their weaknesses and leverage their strengths.”

“We’ve reduced the risk of hiring the wrong people and increased our chances of hiring the right people. Now we have sales people who fit in our culture of accountability, and have the interest, passion and attribute that make them successful in our market.”

Barb Gurstell, Principal, Willow Group Disciplined Sales Management Processes see The Willow Group on Target

Over 4 ½ years, The Willow Group, an IT consulting firm specializing in financial services companies, grew through networking and referrals to 50 employees who served a stable client base. After that the four principals agreed that they needed a disciplined sales effort spearheaded by a full time account executive in order to ensure continued, profitable growth.

Barb Gurstelle, the firm’s principal responsible for generating new business, says, “After losing precious time with two unsuccessful hires, we engaged Sales Growth Specialists Principal Danita Bye to help the firm formulate a profile of a successful candidate for the position. Using Position aliases”, a tool for determining the skills, experience, and attitudes required for specific activities within a specific environment, Danita crafted an accurate position description of a salesperson who would successfully meet Willow Group’s goals and an assessment process to screen candidates.

“Our headhunter used our new assessment process to come up with qualified candidates for Danita to interview. She is adept at tactfully approaching sensitive areas and provided excellent feedback,” Barb explains.

Danita also established disciplined sales management processes to support desired results. Willow’s first hire based on the new recruiting/hiring process started in July, and after 90 days was right on target, meeting the sales 30-, 60- and 90-day plans that Danita helped Barb develop. Weekly sales meetings report on the status of opportunities – how far they are in the qualification process, how the decision will be made, by whom and when, the next step, and actions. A 20-point system scores daily sales activities to help keep the sales effort on track.

“Danita is extremely effective in coaching, interviewing, strategic development,” Barb notes. She helped our accounting firm’s HR practice develop a compensation plan that supports our sales processes. And the sales management training she recommended was very helpful since I had never really managed sales before.”
Willow now has disciplined sales management processes that generate predictable revenue through a consistent focus.
Contact: Barb Gurstelle, 952-897-3550, barb@willowg.com

Jim Cope, CEO, Cornerstone Office Supplies Accountability Structure takes Company to the Next Level

Since 1993, Cornerstone has been providing office supplies and furniture to business and government throughout the Washington Metropolitan area. The Fairfax, Virgina firm has earned a reputation for outstanding value and world-class customer service. Although Cornerstone experienced double-digit growth annually since it was founded, CEO Jim Cope wanted to take his successful company to the next level. He engaged Danita Bye of Sales Growth Specialists to help him and discusses the results she helped him create.

“Before I began working with Danita, I didn’t have a system that would help me grow the company. I knew we couldn’t continue to rely on our current methods, but I wasn’t sure about what changes were necessary. I knew we could improve our sales effort, but I needed Danita’s focused expertise in sales management processes to collaborate with me in developing tools. In building Cornerstone’s system together, we defined and sharpened sales processes to enhance our sales peoples’ effectiveness.

“In helping me define the course for taking the company to the next level and empowering me with the information, skills and tools to get there, Danita gave me confidence to accomplish my goals. Working with her on a quarterly basis to define our objectives and create a plan for me to accomplish them allowed me to leverage Danita’s expertise extremely cost effectively. She challenges me, holding me accountable for action items that will accomplish our objectives. This is the very accountability structure that Cornerstone adopted in working with our sales people.

“With Danita’s help, we improved our recruiting process. Our processes consistently allow us to minimize costly ineffective hires, and our early detection system weeds out marginal hires. We have a much sharper measurement system to identify whether our sales people are meeting expectations. Plus, we have tools to recognize and correct problems, as well as to identify problems that are not correctable.

“By involving our sales people in setting their goals, which are tied to their compensation, they have an ownership stake that creates pain when they don’t meet their targets.”

Mark Philion, VP of Sales, Bellcomb

“A growing personality conflict between our engineers and salespeople threatened our ability to execute our sales plan. Reaching for larger, more complex sales made it imperative for Sales and engineering to work together during the sales process. With the explicit goal of improving communications and working relationships among these key groups, we looked to SGS for help.”

Danita came through with DISC, a tool that reveals behavioral style. Under her guidance, everyone completed an assessment. She facilitated a workshop in which participants learned how to interpret results and the impact of different styles on communication and relationships.

“Danita helped us unmask the elephant in the room, making everyone feel comfortable about the different styles. She led an energizing discussion and facilitated exercises that helped everyone learn how to work more effectively by adapting their style. We learned how to approach each style and what landmines to avoid. In one afternoon, we took the DISC from theoretical to real-world application.

“The results are transformational. We’ve dramatically reduced friction and built empathy between our salespeople and engineers, which has smoothed out the ruffles and enhanced our sales process. The salespeople gained a double advantage, because they can apply the principles to their customer and prospect relationships.”

Bob Kinsella, TriCities Catering

“We’ve gone from thinking we were at capacity to understanding we are nowhere near capacity. It’s dangerous to become complacent.

“Danita helped us manage our sales situation. She pointed out truths that forced us to shake our perceptions. In just 4-5 months, we’ve made real progress. We now have an outstanding director of sales and have designed a four-year plan for sales growth that our sales organization has bought into.”

Bridging a Sales Impasse

“We had built a team of five full time salespeople over six years that generated a formidable increase in revenue. I believed that we were near capacity. However, my operations manager, who also acted as our sales manager, believed otherwise and was frustrated with me for not pushing the sales force. He convinced me we needed professional help to clarify our opportunity and how to move forward. He introduced me to Danita, who had the experience and skills we were looking for.

“Danita was instrumental in facilitating our discussions, which gave us a clearer understanding of what we should expect from our sales team. It was a collaborative process that allowed us to maintain ownership of the solution.”

Assessing the Sales Force

“After profiling our five catering and service managers, I realized I was totally wrong about my limited view of our growth opportunity. The results about their strengths and weaknesses helped me rethink our management team’s agenda. I also realized we needed to hire a director of sales.”

Hiring a Sales Director

“This seemed like a daunting task, but Danita led us through what I believe is the most thorough, yet time-efficient process, starting with how to write the recruiting advert. I would never have thought to write the ad the way it ended up. And I certainly wouldn’t have received 80 responses that we scored using her guidelines.

We offered the 30 remaining candidates the opportunity to take the online assessment and those results helped us narrow the field down to 19. I conducted and scored phone interviews, once again using her guidelines. Then I conducted in-person interviews with the remaining nine candidates, and Danita joined me with the remaining four. I was astounded that almost all of our candidates at one time or another during the process actually praised our process for how thorough it was.”

Sales Planning

“Realizing that our previous plans had been too achievable, we developed a four-year plan for 20-30% annual sales growth. The plan was challenging, but the sales team’s initial reaction was that it was not achievable. I suspect they feared for their bonus, because I had convinced them as well that we were at capacity.

“When we walked the group through the various properties and each room’s capacity, they saw firsthand that current sales were running only 45% of capacity. They took ownership of defining the variables and we agreed on an acceptable percent. We are looking forward to great success, because of their buy-in and the leadership of our new director of sale class=’sub-head’s.”

SGS Helps Bellcomb Execute Large-Account Strategy

Bellcomb is the fastest growing and largest supplier of custom-designed lightweight custom designer of lightweight composite structural panels in the world. Its 1,000,000-square-meter capacity and proprietary efficient production techniques make the company the industry leading manufacturer of honeycomb sandwich panels that solve complex problems. Since its establishment in 1989, Bellcomb has grown to serve clients in more than 40 industries with exceptional expertise in maritime.

Results:

• Improved sales-process cost-effectiveness by replacing 70% of the customers that comprised only 1% of revenue.
• “20 Questions” reduced costly proposals that weren’t being closed.
• Firm negotiation process protects margins.
• Four months into the year, the company is on track to achieving a 50% revenue increase.

The CEO’s Perspective

Bellcomb President and Founder David Hartwell had a reasonable growth strategy for the company: transform the company’s customer base from a plethora of small accounts to select elite accounts. “With our market position—our reputation for dimensional stability, non-combustibility, thermal efficiency, sound control, and moisture and corrosion control—I felt that we should be directing our sales efforts at larger accounts with more complex needs,” says Hartwell.

Hartwell became disenchanted with his sales manager, because he continued to chase smaller accounts. After he fired the sales manager, he contacted Bye to work with a recruiter and hire a replacement who could get the job done. “I had made one bad hire and didn’t want to repeat that mistake. I learned the hard way that a candidate who interviews well is not necessarily a good hire. I certainly learned that a sales manager who understood the negotiation process was key to fulfilling our goal,” Hartwell explains. “And I trusted Danita’s assessment process to get us there.”

Bye’s assessment process proved successful with the hiring of Mark Phillion as the new sales manager. “We now have a future,” says Hartwell. Mark has proven that he understands the negotiation and selling processes, how to sell concepts and manage people.”

Sales Management’s Perspective

Phillion’s impression of the Bellcomb sales organization he first saw was that they appeared to be unenergetic and disheartened. “They believed they were a manufacturing-driven company. I could see that they were really victims of ineffective sales leadership. They didn’t know what they were supposed to do or how to do it. As a result, they were reactive, starved for leads and would glob onto any prospect that was breathing. They were so unempowered that they were poor negotiators,” he explains.

Early changes set the stage for success

On a mission to demonstrate that there was a “new coach in town,” who was determined to improve life for the sales team on all fronts, the ex-Marine felt he needed to act quickly. In addition to creating a 30-, 60- and 90-day plan and instituting weekly meetings, the new sales manager delivered a 100-day state-of-the-union address in which he generated real excitement beyond sales.

Linking mental change with physical change, Phillion literally had the team clean house. “It’s tough to feel professional in an unprofessional environment. They straightened up their offices and got rid of the clutter, so they could focus. We worked on personal appearance. No more unprofessional attire—business casual or formal business attire only. And we worked on being present, committed—no more leaving early.

These physical changes helped change their mindset. We became a much more professional group. We freshened up the brand to reflect our sophisticated capabilities. We attend more shows, including international events, demonstrating our commitment to larger accounts. This has helped drive the culture and mentality we needed to make the psychological leap for multi-million-dollar accounts.” The impact of these early changes spread across the entire company, prompting operations to implement processes required for large-account support.

Methodology fills gaps

In tandem with these efforts, Phillion began plugging the holes revealed in the sales force assessments that Bye had previously conducted. “It was clear that the sales team lacked a methodology,” he notes. “Without a sales process and common language, they didn’t have a framework for successful selling. Danita’s help in developing that framework was essential in turning our performance around.”

Training and coaching actually helped some salespeople who did not assess well excel. “It helped them overcome lack of confidence and fears that were undermining their success—especially fears related to rejection and dealing with big dollars,” Phillion explains. “They learned to stick to the process, accepting the major premise that deals are never about price, but rather about economics. And one of the most valuable lessons they’re embracing is that it’s o.k. to walk away from a deal if it’s not right. In fact, it’s the thing to do rather than waste their time. We’re creating best practices, like the 20 questions we must have prospects answers that help us get to ‘No’.”

Coaching is a huge factor in developing his sales team. Phillion focuses on each salesperson to get them to dream and help them achieve their dream. He says, “By linking their success through a highly motivating compensation plan to the company’s success, we’ve created a win-win environment. Each salesperson created their own goal posts; a visual reminder of what motivates them to be successful sales professionals. Each has their own playbook, complete with goals, plans and tactics. They’re dealing with sales that can literally change their lives.”

The weekly sales meetings have evolved from early arguments about what the team could or couldn’t do to sophisticated negotiation role-plays designed by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business. “We’ve definitely raised the bar,” says Phillion. We’re working on our next hurdle—overcoming the dysfunctional decision-making that commonly occurs in big companies. We’re confident we’ll get there—and soon.”