Results

When Will Swayne, CEO of Marketing Results first met with Ballistix he was about to embark on a marketing campaign. I t soon turned out that the business’ real constraint lay in production capacity. He didn’t need to sell more: He needed to make more!

Since engaging Ballisitix Marketing Results has boosted productivity by 50 per cent, and the enhancement has been achieved in just 20 per cent of the time it typically takes.

Will explains: “We have applied TOC in many ways to a reasonably sophisticated level in our sales process. Incoming calls are now taken by a sales coordinator who has an initial chat with the prospect, sends out the company’s literature and books them in for a half-hour consultation with me. The coordinator later sends out any relevant information and follows up.”

“By taking more calls each day they can really drive lead generation, so we are maximizing a scarce resource and that relieves me of many processes. Instead of taking five hours to get a sale it takes just one hour.”

Will believes adopted properly the increase in throughput is massive.

“As a business owner you have to have the discipline to focus on the right things — your strengths. Today sales and production are the constraints, so the focus is on hiring and training for more growth.”

 

WILL SWAYNE

CEO | Marketing Results

Megara was dealing in a challenging and mature manufacturing environment. Attempts to grow revenue by building-out the sales team (11 salespeople and an experienced sales manager) had limited effect.

Ballistix worked with Megara to build a dedicated inside-sales account management team supported by specialist teams of estimators, customer service and field-based project leaders.

After a lot of hard work, Megara has proof of concept of this new co-ordinated approach to business development and sales support. Much work still needs to be done but an actionable plan is in place.

Metromix is based in the state of NSW in Australia and operates three quarries which supplies the local construction materials market. We normally sell approximately 1 million tones per annum. As a revenue improvement project we identified the benefits of being able to sell an extra 10% and what that would do our profit.

We at Metromix agreed to use the Ballistix sales process to try and achieve that goal.

What Ballistix did for us, was to run a workshop flowcharting the ‘current sales process’ and then with the input of the sales team flowchart ‘the proposed sales process’. Once the proposed sales process was agreed upon, the process of resourcing the project with additional staff and software commenced. In our case, we needed to recruit a sales coordinator and a field sales person.

The project was launched and the people were trained in the process required.

Would you believe since the launch of the project, the demand for our products has been well
above average and has put enormous pressure on our production staff. With that in mind our focus has been on selling our low volume/high margin products during this period. Although it’s too early to evaluate the sales process we are well and truly committed to it.

We enjoyed working with Ballistix and I believe the main reason our companies work well
together was simply the team was committed to the process. My only advice is that should you wish to use the Ballistix Sales Process, be committed to the project or don’t bother.

We are very much looking forward to 2008.

Yours faithfully,

WILLIAM SANDERSON

Quarries Manager
Metromix Pty Ltd

I recommended Justin and Ballistix to my senior management and BOD to undertake the ‘re-engineering’ of our sales process.

We are in a mature marketplace with excess capacity, and overzealous competitors. Justin’s science/methodology is proving to be the proper medicine for our ailing sales approach. We are enthused by the early results, and look forward to repeatable, scalable and reliable sales.

 

KEITH OGLIVIE

Midwesco

Orion had no formal sales process and salespeople performing only a couple of BDM appointments per week.

Ballistix built a sales support team comprising sales coordinators and a promotional team using direct mail pieces to generate “warm” sales opportunities.

Division of labour resulted in BDM conducting more than 20 face-to-face appointments per week per while direct mail offers increased appointment-setting promotion dramatically.

Just a short note to let you know that our recent project to restructure the sales team has exceeded all our expectations.

We began this process after seeing a decline in our percentage of tenders won and receiving customer feedback that we had lost intimate contact with the market.

After an extensive restructure of our sales process we are seeing a much improved success rate on tenders, greater face-to-face customer contact and revitalized employees who have a clear understanding of their role in the team.

As always, you and your team were easy to work with and represented the height of professionalism in offering consulting services.

Please pass on my thanks to your team and we look forward to working with you in the future.

 

ANDREW OKELY

Manager Minerals Processing
Outotec Pty Ltd

Programmed Property Services is the largest provider of Trade services in Australia in New Zealand; we have over 5000 long term maintenance contracts in Australia. One of our core services is long term painting services. This is a part of our business that has seen very minimal growth in the last 5 years.

We engaged Ballistix to see how their system could reverse this trend.

The Ballistix process was very different to any system we have used before. Initially we were concerned that making such a drastic change to the way we currently do business could be quite disastrous. We decided to roll out the process only in 2 states and in our metropolitan offices only. This was done intentionally, to minimize the impact if the system was not successful.

The key changes we made were employing 2 sales coordinators, who effectively took control of our 4 sales peoples diaries. We also engaged a part time market research person who is assisted by our marketing manager, to develop and maintain campaigns. The sales co-coordinators were trained well in the Ballistix system and have proven to be the key factor in making this system work. We also took away the mundane day to day sales reporting functions and non sales related tasks away from our sales team.

The system was executed reasonably smoothly, some initial IT problems were soon resolved and the system was in place quite promptly. After some initial hesitance from our existing sales team, of which some members have been with the business over 15years, the system was adapted by them and now is a routine.

The system has been operating in our business for over 3 months now and although it is very early to give a true indication, so far the results have been outstanding. Our sales team has seen more NEW customers in a 3 month period that we would normally not see over a 6 month period. Our general sales inquiry is up about 40% in this new customer market. Our current win results have not yet been significantly increased, however our sales cycle is normally 6-8 months, we expect to have some of this enquiry converted within the next 3 months.

I would have no hesitation in recommending the Ballistix system to any organisation that is looking to increase the sales activity of their sale force and to better manage the capacity of their sales staff.

Yours sincerely,

NATHAN D’COUTO

Programmed Property Services

Ronstan is an Australian manufacturer of sailing equipment and stainless steel architectural fittings.

We engaged Justin of Ballistix to conduct a Solution Design Workshop as we set about a review of the way our sales force is managed, looking for new direction.

Justin’s approach was extremely effective and impressive. At the two day workshop he demonstrated an ability to understand our business and it nuances, and to tailor a solution and structure that made great commercial sense. He was very insightful and intelligent with all comments, observations and questions.

The work shop has contributed in a meaningful and significant way to our planning in the sales area. We anticipate being a far more effective sales organisation as a result of Justin’s work and we will certainly be considering using Ballistix again in an expanded role.

Managing Director

Ronstan

Shippers was operating in a commoditised market where price competition prevails. There was no control of autonomous salespeople creating a situation where they relied on sales “superstars”.

Ballistix helped Shippers to promote “Easy Supply Program” (a new product offering to differentiate the Shippers product in market) and a sales support team to allow salespeople to concentrate solely on BDM appointments.

Shippers increased to 15-20 business development call each week and have subsequently expanded sales force to cope with increased BDM activity. Sales have increased every month since the engagement began.

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Shippers Supply is a fifty-six-year-old packaging equipment and supply distributor based in Louisville, KY. We service the states of Kentucky, West Virginia and portions of Indiana and Ohio. We have traditionally sold B2B using commissioned sales representatives responsible for a geographic territory.

In the spring of 2008, the company found itself at an important crossroads. It had just developed and launched an exciting new vendor-management supply program called the Easy Supply Program (ESP).

The clients who had embraced our new ESP loved it. The problem was the uptake of new clients was far too slow.

WE NEEDED A WAY TO SCALE OUR SERVICE OFFERING — FAST!

We knew of Ballistix for several years prior to hiring them. We had attended several of Justin’s presentations and spoken with him personally. We believed that the Ballistix tools would offer us the solution we needed to sell our Easy Supply Program more effectively.

Unfortunately, we also believed that we could implement the Ballistix methodology on our own. As you might expect, not only did we not succeed, we almost convinced everyone we touched that the Ballistix methodology was flawed!

With our faith in the core Ballistix methodology still intact, we decided to reach out to the experts and engage Ballistix in a four-month implementation project.

The strategy implemented by Justin and team was reasonably simple.

We agreed to focus one member of the sales team exclusively on business development calls for our Easy Supply Program and support him with a Sales Coordinator and accompanying management reporting tools.

Katrina Rowe, a Ballistix Reengineering Consultant, was assigned to guide us through the changes. Katrina detailed clearly the implementation changes we needed to make and, just as importantly, the reasons for these changes.

Initially, the biggest hurdle was implementing the technical aspects of the process. The measurement and tracking tools seemed reasonably complex, but with the assistance and guidance of Ballistix, the implementation went more smoothly than even they expected.

THE RESULTS

Our sales environment as it exists today is vastly different than before the arrival of Ballistix.

Within two months of the project completion, our BDM assigned to ESP opportunities was operating at full capacity: four appointments a day, five days a week.

The consistency of this activity has meant that ESP sales are 400% greater than the target we set for Ballistix — and more than 600% greater than the sales level we were achieving prior to the reengineering project.

The impact on salespeople has been dramatic. Our salespeople have more opportunities than ever. They no longer have to try to find opportunities, instead they can just focus on what they do best — sell!

Thanks to our new sales process, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of clients coming on board with ESP, and we are confident that we have the infrastructure in place to sustain this growth.

Just as importantly, we can consistently generate the right amount of opportunities with relative ease. We are even considering adding an additional Business Development Manager and Sales Coordinator.

The future is exciting and we have no hesitation in recommending Ballistix to other companies wanting a boost to their sales infrastructure.

Regards,

JOHN ALLEN
Shippers Supply Company

Southern Cross Truck Rental provides short- and long-term rental of trucks and trailers and has been servicing the rental needs of transport companies and associations across sout-west Sydney for the last 3 years.

In the past we found that Sales Representatives were difficult to manage and retain which resulted in Southern Cross Truck Rentals having no dedicated sales people and lacking a formal sales process.

Ballistix was looked upon to provide an alternative approach to our deficient sales process.

Ballistix consultants worked hands-on in our business conducting the following activities:

• Designing and implementing formal sales processes and supporting technology
• Recruiting necessary personnel
• Coaching team members and management on their critical contributions to the process
• Managing the development and integration of technology (reporting)
• Fine-tuning the project plan
• As a result of the project we are showing increase in activity, positive feedback from customers and have acquired new accounts.

During the 3 month project we found Ballistix to be dedicated, courteous and very responsive to our needs.

I have no hesitation recommending Ballistix’ services and would be happy to clarify this statement.

Yours sincerely,

STEPHEN BLACKMORE

Director

Superior Glove is Canada’s largest work glove manufacturer. The company sells specialized work gloves across North America and Europe to companies such as Toyota Manufacturing, US Steel and Alcelormittal.

Joe Geng, Superior Glove’s President was attracted to Ballistix as he believed the consultancy’s Sales Process Engineering (SPE) methodology offered a solution to his firm’s lack of clarity around the sales process.

Joe explains:

“We really had no idea what was happening day to day with our sales team. We had a gut feeling that our sales team was spending too much time on customer service issues but no way to measure how bad the situation really was.”

More specifically, Joe had concerns that sales leads weren’t being followed-up a timely manner (sometimes not at all) and the sales team was underutilized partially due to structuring sales territories on guess work.

An unfortunate consequence of this situation was that it was taking Superior Glove at least a year to determine if a new hire was effective.

“We tried in the past implementing a CRM system to help us manage our sales force and get a better understanding of what was going on in the field. This failed miserably,” explains Joe.

“Our sales management spent a lot time chasing our sales team to report on CRM but the results were spotty. Our sales team wanted to spend time selling not filling in reports on our CRM.”

Looking for a solution they reached out to Ballistix.

“We were impressed with Ballistix’s Sales Process Engineering methodology and decided to commission a project,” adds Joe.

After a challenging and exhaustive Solution Design Workshop a number of critical changes to the current sales process were mapped out:

Add a sales coordinator for every two salespeople. The goal was to give the team sales coordinators to manage calendars, book appointments, follow up leads and so on to free up a huge chunk of time so the sales people could focus on what they do best—sell!.

Restructure the customer service department to ensure that customer issues were being handled properly. This was to dramatically reduce the number of customer issues and repeat order calls that were preventing the sales team from focusing on new sales.

Implement a systematic work flow for finding and adding new distributors. In spite of the fact that a critical key for growth was finding and building relationships with new distributors, there was no formal plan in place.

Implement a sales reporting system. The data required for this report was entered by the sales coordinators and viewed by the sales manager and sales team each week.

Joe was delighted how well the changes went and, more importantly, how well the changes were embraced by the sales team.

“Most salespeople were thrilled to hand over customer service, appointment setting and sales reporting to the sales coordinators and spend all their time in front of customers, generating new business,”, adds said Joe.

According to Joe, the sales Management Information System (MIS ) implemented by Ballistix was a big breakthrough.

“The MIS was managed by the sales coordinators, not the sales people. This was huge,” explains Joe..

“It allowed us to have an accurate view of what was going on in each sales territory. This allowed our sales management to see ahead of time where we were having issues and take the appropriate actions to improve the situation. For example, we were able to see territories where a salesperson was underutilized and increase marketing efforts in that area or help the salesperson to find and set up new distributors.”.

THE RESULTS

Joe reports in the 9 months since working with Ballistix, the sales team utilization has increased dramatically to sit at an average of 80% across the entire team. More importantly, overall sales have increased by 10% in a difficult economic environment with a massive 50% increase in US sales.

“Another big breakthrough is that we now have the visibility to see if a new sales person is working out within months, not years. This has given us the confidence to add new sales people and develop new territories at a much faster pace than we ever previously dreamed possible,” concludes Joe.

JOE GENG
Superior Glove
President

Before working with Ballistix, TEBA had a small number of salespeople performing, collectively, very few sales calls.

TEBA implemented the Ballistix approach to sales process with centralized scheduling and a coordinated approach to lead generation and business development. A key change was to give the primary responsibility back to the CEO who performed a number of high-value sales appointments each week originated and managed by a dedicated sales coordinator.

TEBA now uses events and direct mail to generate a decent volume of sales appointments and in spite of the fact that new system requires him to make sales calls, he has more spare capacity than he has ever had.