CASE STUDY: 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 pipeline was not consistently full since there was too much dependence on distributors to develop business, they needed a more organized & structured sales environment in preparation for the addition of 2 outside sales representatives and they needed to improve their overall management of the sales organization.

Analysis

In analyzing the company's existing structure, Focus America & Airtec concluded that:
· A new business department needed to be developed to more proactively & consistently generate new business opportunities
instead of purely relying on distributors; this person was selected & managed by Focus America.
· Implementing a CRM package, which would create a more systematic approach to tracking internal efforts, would in turn build a more solid approach to staying on top of both customer & 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 & Salesforce.com to help restructure the Sales organization through the various stages of the selling & buying cycle. A training workshop was held to introduce the new structure
· Conduct weekly & monthly meetings with the Business Development Representative to monitor their results, set expectations, identify & correct areas of improvement & develop prospect communication tools.
· Establish quantifiable expectations & held monthly meeting with the Sales Representatives to help them achieve goals. Provide coaching in areas of prospecting, communications & closing.

Result

As a result of Focus America's continued work:

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