Demonstrating Sales Negotiations ROI in a Highly Competitive Market

Demonstrating Sales Negotiations ROI Transportation Industry

Demonstrating a Return on Sales Negotiations for a Transportation Company

Client Case Study

Situation — Demonstrating Sales Negotiations ROI

With over $5 billion in annual revenues, Ryder is a world leader in supply chain and transportation management solutions.  The company’s 30,000 employees work with clients in three primarily business segments:

  1. Fleet Leasing and Maintenance
  2. Dedicated Contract Carriage
  3. Supply Chain Services.

The company completed a multi-year restructuring program that resulted in a more streamlined approach to every facet of its business.

Complications

Operating in a highly competitive market, the company’s organizational focus after the restructuring was growing top line sales, growing margin (particularly on national deals) and increasing customer retention.

A formal Negotiation Needs Analysis identified the following issues that impact Ryder’s ability to achieve their business goals:

  • More sophisticated buyers
  • Incomplete analysis and preparation for deals
  • Tendency to “shoot from the hip” rather than use a fact-based approach
  • A large “inventory” of legacy deals where value had been given away
  • No definition of a “Great Deal” for Ryder
  • Little autonomy by the field in closing deals
  • A good sales process in place but no formal organizational negotiation process
  • Cross-functional areas acting independently, each with its own goals and objectives (often at odds with achieving a “Great Deal” for Ryder)
  • Lack of training and process implementation and reinforcement

Approach

In order to address these key issues, we recommended to Ryder that rather than just run a series of training events, it implement a cross-functional, organization-wide Negotiation Solution which included sales negotiation training, sales coaching, and consulting.

Focusing on the “big picture” business results that Ryder was looking to achieve, the Ryder negotiation strategy was developed by gathering key representatives from the Executive Team, Sales Management, National Account Sales, Legal, Pricing, Human Resources, Finance and Marketing. The first step was to identify and agree on what measurable results would signify a successful initiative, and then develop the key actions to produce those results that included:

Approach (cont.)

  1. Strategic Sales Clarity
    Defining a common goal or organizational negotiation strategy linked to the company’s sales strategy
  2. Process
    Agreeing on a common negotiation process integrated with the sales process including:

    • A SWOT form for every deal over $500K
    • Collaboration meetings with Legal, Pricing, Credit, Lease Finance, and appropriate Senior Management will be held for every deal over $1,000,000 prior to an offer being submitted
    • Negotiation process language being incorporated in the scorecards of each Managing Director of Sales, Regional Director of Sales, Director of National Accounts, and Director of Business Development
    • Completing a Consequences of No Agreement “gap” analysis of value propositions before reacting to competitive pricing
    • Incorporating the methodology of Multiple Equal Offers in every proposal
    • Including Fuel and insurance in at least 1 MEO for every deal
    • Not agreeing to concessions but, rather, trading for something of greater or equal value
  3. Performance Coaching and Skill Building
    Skill development combined with coaching process implementation
  4. Impact and Accountability
    Measuring results and continuously improving

Results — Demonstrating Sales Negotiations ROI
In twelve months:

  • $13.4M in incremental revenue
  • $3.2M in incremental incremental operating profit
  • 109% increased average closing ratio
  • 17% margin improvement
  • 271.5% return on investment

Related Information

ServiceSource has relied on LSA Global’s expertise for a variety of core initiatives, from strategy design and implementation, to business sales skills, to sales coaching. We recently engaged LSA Global to create a competency matrix for our inside sales team that will serve as our roadmap for employee on-boarding, development, succession planning, and retention.

This critical project had a tight timeline with high visibility. LSA Global completed the deliverable ahead of schedule and surpassed our expectations.

PMO and Outside Sales Operations
Senior Vice President

Service Source

LSA has consistently delivered top notch value to Seagate’s Corporate University Program. The level of facilitator involvement and continuous program evolution has kept the sales negotiation training engaging, relevant, and impactful.

We look forward to working with LSA in the future.

Geoff Purnell
Sales Executive, Seagate Data Recovery Services

Seagate

LSA Global rocks! Thank you for helping our executive team get aligned by creating a powerful and clear strategic direction and go to market sales growth plan that we could all fully commit to.

From a sales growth perspective, I am really energized about the outcome and grateful for what I have learned throughout the strategic clarity facilitation process.

Stacey Wong
VP Sales

Servicon-Logo-LSAGlobal

From beginning to end, LSA was as invested in making sure the program succeeded as we were. They not only met the needs of our sales organization, but they helped us meet our very tight launch deadline.

The consultant operated with the sense of urgency necessary to ensure that we were ready to roll the business sales training program in a way that made sense.

Without their dedication and sales expertise we would not have been able to launch the program with the success that we did. Thank you LSA for being a valued business partner!

Erin Surprise
PHR, Manager - L & D

LSA is a great and high quality training and consulting resource. In less than a week turnaround time, they were able to design and deliver a ‘best in class’ inside sales solution to meet my team’s unique needs.

They definitely met my high expectations and were very responsive to my specific objectives.  Thank you!

Olivia Flach
Americas Retail Sales

Sandisk

We partnered with LSA to help custom design, deliver, and measure an advanced new employee on-boarding process. It was well thought out and bought into by sales leadership.  The combination of targeted sales tools, technology, coaching, performance plans, training, and reinforcement made all the difference.  The solution quantifiably improved new employee and hiring manager satisfaction and increased the speed to sales quota for new hires.

I would highly recommend LSA Global for any sales enablement team looking to increase the engagement and speed to productivity of their sales force. We are excited to implement the program globally as we continue to scale.

Rochana Golani
Director, Global Sales & Technical Field Enablement

We evaluated 6 well known sales development partners in the market. We ended up selecting LSA global because of their unique ability to get results selling solutions.  They also had the strongest assessment, implementation, measurement, coaching, and global capabilities .

We’ve had such strong feedback from the executive selling program that there are requests to roll it out within the Marketing, Product Management, and our Leadership teams.  Thank you LSA!

Stephanie Lucey
HR Manager

We selected LSA over a handful of other experts to assist with a key sales leadership imperative. LSA added value every step of the way throughout the entire engagement. Their customized approach to sales presentation training exceeded expectations, and we are excited about global implementation across our offices in more than 100 countries.

LSA’s unique Strategy-to-Results approach is an added game changer.  I recommend them to anyone looking to get high quality results when it matters most.

Eric Mugele
Executive Director Global Learning

Grant Thornton

LSA Global has been a great partner in helping us move toward being “the leading developer of talent in the service performance management industry.”

I have engaged LSA to help develop best-in-class programs in the areas of: Executive On-boarding, Manager Training, Sales Training and Coaching, Employee Engagement, and Instructional Design.

They have consistently met or exceeded my (very) high expectations and are always responsive to my needs to increase performance, engagement, customer satisfaction, and sales growth.

Mike Normant
Senior Director, Training & Development

Service Source

Seagate has always found LSA to be a highly valuable consulting, training, and coaching resource.

The recent business sales training programs they’ve delivered for Seagate University have been the right solution, of highest of quality, and highly customized to our unique business and culture.

I would highly recommend LSA to any company interested in offering top notch learning solutions that make a difference.

Tammy Dujmovich
Sales, Marketing & Customer Service

Seagate

At the onset of our engagement with LSA, I was skeptical that an outside firm would be able to understand and dissect our organization’s highly complex and technical business challenges.

However, through the leadership team interview and strategy retreat processes that LSA utilized, they provided a fresh, innovative, and practical perspective that created tremendous strategic value and focus for our executive leadership team.

As a result, I would highly recommend LSA Global to any leader struggling with building the strategic alignment and high performance teams necessary to generate sales growth, in a way that fits their unique corporate culture.

Robert Laudati
Managing Director

L3Harris_Logo-LSAGlobal

LSA custom designed and delivered the best sales training session that I have ever attended.

They focused on our industry, our customers, and our competitors. The materials and facilitators were world class.

They were passionate about helping our global sales force understand the fundamentals necessary to be successful and not leave money on the table.

I recommend them to any sales force looking to drive profitable revenue and beat the competition.

Carl Dickenson
Director of Sales

Cutera

In an effort to establish a solid foundation of consultative selling skills for our client-facing teams that can be built on over time, we engaged with LSA Global. By understanding our business and our markets, LSA Global was able to design and deliver the relevant sales skills, tools, and processes that have established the foundation for our future success.

We are extremely satisfied with our decision to work with LSA.  Thank you!.”

Kevin Wiley
Chief Operating Officer

Nelnet

We originally engaged with LSA Global to help our subcontract administrators and buyers develop better negotiations skills. As manufacturers of satellites, we have many sole source companies to procure the required parts.

Our teams must be able to interact effectively with international companies. This environment uniquely challenges our team in their ability to create equitable contracts, while preserving and strengthening our supplier relationships.

LSA Global not only provided our team with the skills to negotiate effectively and consistently, but we further expanded our relationship to include consulting around our negotiations’ process, measurement of our negotiations, and one-on-one coaching for our team members. We are very pleased with the result of our partnership with LSA Global.

Vivian Mackintosh
Vice President of Materiel

Space Systems Loral

LSA Global demonstrated excellent expertise in sales and sales leadership, spent the time required to make sure the objectives were clear, and showed flexibility in shaping and sustaining everything that they did.

They “MEDRADized” the session to meet our unique needs, looked beyond the obvious, and got the key points across in a way that made sense.  Thank you!

Doug Stantial
North America Sales Training Manager

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