Airtec Pneumatics Inc.: Putting in the Structure for Growth

Challenge
Airtec Pneumatics Inc. offers products from simple pneumatic controls to customer specific solutions incorporating the latest electronic technologies. Airtec's challenge was threefold;

Their sales pipeline was not consistently full since there was too much dependence on distributors to develop business,
They needed a more organized and structured sales environment in preparation for the addition of two outside sales representatives, and
They needed to improve their overall management of the sales organization.

Analysis
In analyzing the company's existing sales structure, Focus America and Airtec concluded that:

A new business development department needed to be developed to more proactively and consistently generate new business opportunities instead of purely relying on distributors. This person was selected and managed by Focus America.
A Customer Relationship Management system (CRM implementation) was needed to create a more systematic approach to tracking internal efforts, and would in turn build a more solid approach to staying on top of both customer and prospect relations.
The sales team needed to be thoroughly managed to quantifiable monthly expectations.

Solution
The plan was for Focus America to:

Develop a customized Sales Roadmap and implement the CRM Salesforce.com to help restructure the sales organization through the various stages of the selling and buying cycle. A sales training workshop was held to introduce the new structure.
Conduct weekly and monthly meetings with the Business Development Representative to monitor results, set expectations, identify and correct areas of improvement, and develop prospect communication tools.
Establish quantifiable expectations, and held monthly meeting with the Sales Representatives to help them achieve goals. Provide coaching in areas of prospecting, communications, and closing.

Result
As a result of Focus America's continued work:

Airtec can easily identify opportunities in the sales pipeline.
All members within the sales organization can monitor and work together with the customers within one uniform database.
The Business Development representative is consistently feeding the Sales Representatives and distributors with more productive sales leads.
The Sales Representatives are working towards greater monthly expectations. Currently one of their Sales Reps continues to exceed his expectations by 50%.