To reach its bold sales goals, this multinational industry leader needed to solve the following challenges:

Problems:

1. The company had experienced rapid growth through acquisition of more than 100 firms. Each of these acquired companies had its own sales training philosophy and program. A salesperson calling on an account in one city would sell differently then a salesperson calling on the same account in a different city. This translated into a lack of consistency and control of their sales process - no sales culture. The result was a confusing message for customers, inability for sales managers to coach and train, and poor sales effectiveness.

2. Some of the acquired companies were committed to sales training, some were not. The result was a) an unacceptably high level of turnover, b) no consistent process for sales managers to coach, c) slow ramp-up time for new hires.

Solution:

After evaluating dozens of sales models over a six-month period, Getting Into Your Customer's Head was selected to achieve the following goals:

1. Install a company-wide customer-focused sales culture for all salespeople and sales managers.

2. Reduce turnover in sales and sales management ranks.

How Customer's Head is being implemented:

1. New-hires receive a two-week classroom version of Customer's Head, preceded by a computer-based pre-course. This course has been online since January 1998.

2. Existing salespeople who have not yet attained the level of major accounts began receiving a three-day version of Customer's Head in May 1998.

3. Roll out of the major account version of Customer's Head began in the first quarter, 1999.

When asked why his company was teaching a high-level, executive sales approach to new sales hires, our client's Vice President of Training responded, "We felt it was best to, right from the start, teach our salespeople to play chess instead of checkers."