For us, as a professional business consulting firm, sales consulting is adapting proven sales transformation solutions and technology to each and every client. It is providing implementation support to guide, demonstrate, and encourage the path forward to transforming a client’s sales organization. All aspects of sales performance, organizational structure, and operations can be enhanced working side by side with our clients to ensure timely transformational success and the business outcomes that characterize that success. All of our consulting engagements are supported with some level of quantitative analytics to reflect an engineering approach and mindset, which drives more measureable results.
Go-To-Market Consulting
Effective marketing and selling of a new product/service is predicated on a strong Marketing Plan that details the strategy and tactics to penetrate a market opportunity. Holden provides consulting services on various aspects of a marketing plan, including:
- Defining and Segmenting Target Markets
- Identifying Actionable Competitive Intelligence
- Defining Buyer Types
- Crafting Compelling Value Propositions
Sales Performance Consulting
The foundation of sales performance is having the right sellers use the right sales methodologies with the right accounts to win deals and load the pipeline with new business. It’s here that proven sales methodologies are customized to the needs of each client. Sales management coaching is modeled with live deal coaching sessions conducted by our staff to demonstrate best practices and help sales managers develop their coaching skills, while sellers develop their selling skills with instructor led and online sales training that focus on live and simulated opportunities. Training is always configured to the specific needs of the field sales organization.
Sales Structure and Operations Consulting
Applying best practices to determine, for example, how many reports a sales manager should have, how many sales support people is optimum, should a major accounts program be put in place, is the quota setting process accurate and reliable, should an executive sponsorship initiative be put in place or improved, or does pipeline management need improvement to support better sales forecasting? These areas of consulting support are intended to ensure alignment between client executive expectations of the field sales organization and the field organization’s ability to perform to those expectations.
Field Staffing and Compensation Consulting
Enhancing the hiring process by using structured interviewing that centers on key sales skills and knowledge, as evidenced by candidate past performance, brings new consulting intelligence to securing sales talent and onboarding that talent in the most effective manner. Coupled with innovative compensation that links sales methodology implementation effectiveness to bonus and commission, sellers become extremely motivated to demonstrate the right behaviors that drive sales performance.
Sales Culture Consulting
Building the right sales culture that not only reflects the company’s values, but also encourages the right mindset in the field is critical to learning in the digital era with online training and simulation exercises and to creating demand within accounts. Most sellers service demand where the opportunity originates within the customer organization. The requirements are defined, a budget is set, and the buying process is well defined and managed. In contrast, the opportunity when creating demand does not originate with the customer, but with the seller. Here, a seller looks for the potential to create an opportunity and load net new business into the pipeline. It’s an effort that requires leadership ability and the right mindset, which often becomes the focus for our consulting.
Client Specific Sales Transformation Consulting
This can range from helping our clients develop compelling value messaging that resonates with customer individuals at multiple levels and with multiple roles, to quantifying the value of sales support people globally and determining analytically the optimum ratio of sales support people to sellers. These, and other examples, reflect a total commitment to our building lifelong clients.