Identifying Key Sales Competencies and Gaps: Technology

Identifying Sales Core Competencies and Skill Gaps

Client Case Study

Situation

This fast-paced technology company knew that to position ourselves for a successful fiscal year that they needed to quickly and accurately identify the mission-critical selling skills within their sales teams to combat an ever-changing competitive landscape.

The company wanted to conduct a performance-based assessment of their sales professionals to have executives and their 200+ person sales force agree upon the top “money making” sales skills required to execute their new go-to-market strategy.  

Complications

  • Increased Pressure: Although the company had a substantial install base, revenue, cost, pricing, and competitor pressures are increasing.
  • Changing Landscape: While the company once dominated their market, recent product quality and acquisition challenges have opened the door to competition.
  • New Strategy: To respond to these pressures, the company introduced a new product and sales strategy to expand the product portfolio, position solutions vs. products, and to move up the value chain.
  • Executive and Solution Selling: To support the new strategy, the company would like to increase executive and solution selling skill sets to beat the competition and drive larger deal size.

  • Looking for a Partner: The company has met with other sales providers and was not satisfied with their levels of flexibility, approach, depth of solutions, ability to customize, or reinforcement and measurement offerings.

  • Geographical Differences: Europe, Asia and the Americas all face different customer, market, employee, and competitor challenges.

Approach

  1. Identified key metrics to move: Days to Proposal and Days to Close
  2. Identified target audience: 218 sales reps
  3. Interviewed sales executives and staff in North America, Asia, Europe, and Latin America
  4. Created a customized Leader Assess Survey for executives and leaders to prioritize the key sales competencies required to succeed both now and in the future based upon a database of 150 behavior-based sales questions
  5. Created and administered a customized Team Assess Survey to identify the proficiency levels of the sales force across teh core sales competencies
  6. Correlated high and low proficiency levels to Days to Proposal and Days to Close
  7. Created customized training and development plan
  8. Designed, implemented and measured experiential sales learning solutions across four continents to drive sales success

Results

  • 96% response rate
  • 8 key solution selling competencies agreed to by leadership out of a list of 150 behavioral-based sales competencies across : Solution selling, Business and Financial Acumen, Qualifying, Positioning and Presenting, Negotiating and Closing, Managing Accounts Receivables, Sales Performance Coaching Skills, and Team Alignment
  • 53.1% difference in Days to Proposal between high and low proficiency levels across the 8 key skills
  • 17.9% difference in Days to Close between high and low proficiency levels across the 8 key skills
  • Identified Top four major skill areas to reinforce: Positioning and Presenting, Negotiating and Closing, Managing Accounts Receivables and Team Alignment
  • Identified bottom four skills areas to develop: Sales Performance Coaching, Business and Financial Acumen, Qualifying and Solution selling

What a refreshing change from the half-baked psycho-babble you normally get from training and consulting organizations. LSA gives you the practical and results-oriented assistance you need to define and reach your goals.

Their leadership, management, and sales expertise has been invaluable.  They think strategically and provide a results driven plan – not just a temporary fix.

They are great to work with, and even more importantly, they “get it!”

David Fiano
Director of Merchandising

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

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

We selected LSA Global over several other sales experts based upon their ability to clarify and align our sales strategy, their expertise in identifying the critical sales scenarios necessary to meet our growth targets, and their willingness to stand behind the results with targeted sales management training and coaching and a pay-for-performance guarantee.

They have become an integral part of my sales team as we rapidly scale. I would recommend them to any sales  leader looking for a true partner.

Anthony Lanham
SVP, Sales North America

jumio-client-logo-technology-cyber-security-LSA-Global

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

LSA’s introduction and continuous reinforcement of the MEDRAD objectives, vision, and mission were very impressive. The majority now understands and is openly able to verbalize these key items.

LSA did a wonderful job introducing the importance of sales coaching and reinforcement and was able to keep everyone focused.

Cindy Steffen
National Manager, Telesales

LSA’s customized Effective Presentation Skills program has helped us elevate our presentation skills to the next level. I personally now have a much greater self-awareness of my presentation skills and can leverage my strengths while working to improve upon other areas.

I definitely recommend LSA Global to anyone for whom presentations are an integral part of their job.

Jim Elliott
Senior Marketing Manager

Samsung

We value the relationship we have with LSA Global. They customize and deliver top quality sales solutions when we needed them. They pay special attention to ensuring the solution fits our unique needs, business, and culture.

I would recommend them to anyone looking to greatly improve the skills of their sales force.

Carol M. Harbin
Manager, Worldwide Sales L&D

AMD

We engaged with LSA Global to help our sales team identify opportunities to accelerate our commitment to sales excellence. The facilitator’s shared passion for our goals created a foundation for sales skill adoption, as did LSA’s keen understanding of our unique business environment.

This insight allowed LSA to deliver customized and impactful business sales training workshops which were adapted to reflect our specific business dynamics and provided our employees with the sales models and tools to leverage on every call with customers.

Grant Clarke
Director Client Delivery

Service Source

LSA always delivers the right sales and sales management solutions to meet our unique needs. I especially appreciate their ability to deeply understand our business and our culture so that they can design the most valuable and impactful outcomes for us and our clients.

Sarah Parks
Senior Project Manager

Hyperion

We recently hired LSA to help us take our client delivery methodology to the next level as we continue to grow and help our clients succeed.

The custom strategy and design session exceeded our expectations. They really understood our business and delivered within tight time frames. They were the best I have seen for this type of complex, visible, and strategic work.

LSA’s ability to get a group of 20+ executives from around the globe on the same page, push their thinking to new heights, and ensure an executable plan was excellent.

I would recommend LSA to anyone looking to take their strategy and strategic execution to the next level.

Rob Sturgeon
EVP Client Delivery

Service Source

We hired LSA to help align our sales strategy with our business strategy to sustain our hardware business while driving high growth in software and services. LSA’s ability to measure our level of strategic alignment, pinpoint areas of leverage and get the entire executive sales team to agree upon what matters most exceeded our expectations.

I would recommend them to any sales leader who wants to drive sales performance.

Dan Dica
SVP Worldwide Sales

OneSpan-Client-Logo-Technology-Cyber-Security-LSA-Global

We engaged with LSA Global to deliver a custom sales territory planning and management workshop. They have a unique ability to quickly understand our business and needs. This keen understanding allowed for a solution that was specific and impactful.

Their facilitators were well prepared and ingrained themselves to become one of us. We’ve come to see LSA Global as a true sales partner.

Pratiksha Patel
Assistant Vice President Talent

L'Oreal

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

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

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