Client Stories > Demonstrating Sales Negotiations ROI in a Highly Competitive Market

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

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