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Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home

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About the Client
Girls and Boys Town, the original Father Flanagan’s. Boys’ Home, is a leader in the treatment and care of abused, abandoned and neglected girls and boys. It‘s National Resource and Training Center (NRTC) provides professional services and products to practitioners and organizations worldwide in the fields of Education, Child and Family Services and Behavioral Health.

Situation
The NRTC had struggled to sell its products and services effectively for almost a decade. Failing to achieve adequate sales growth internally, it turned to an outsourcer but was very poorly served and terminated that relationship in early in 2002. Unwavering ill its intent on growing sales, the NRTC asked Sales OverDrive to assess their situation and provide a comprehensive outsourced sales and marketing solution.

Considerations
Sales OverDrive analyzed the client’s business model and sales organization, identifying seven major weaknesses that had to be rectified for the NRTC to accomplish its revenue objectives. These were as follows:

1.The lack of a clearly defined and articulated NRTC vision and mission 2.An inadequate understanding of the market and no cohesive strategy 3.Absence of a sustainable, repeatable set of sales and marketing processes 4.Inability to acquire, train and retain top talent 5.Lacking sales leadership and informal management of the sales team 6.No leverage of high value resources through teaming or the use of key sales accelerators 7.Lagging product development and no focus on sales execution

On the execution level, account research was inadequate, sales efforts were reactive and there was no system or process in use to manage opportunities. There was no strategy or sales process. The sales people were generally knowledgeable about the industry and products but unskilled in sales.  Although the sales and marketing organization was large and balanced between sales and marketing, all key sales metrics were in the red. There was very little linkage between Operations, Sales and Marketing initiatives, creating significant staffing imbalances. The sales team was geographically centralized at the NRTC headquarters in Omaha rather than close to the customer base.

Measurement and reporting was inadequate and compensation plans were not built in such a way as to reward sales professionals for the behaviors most predictive of sales success. The sales force automation tool in use was incapable of providing management with the key performance indicators necessary to manage the business unit.

Solution
The NRTC turned to Sales OverDrive to take advantage of its great experience in the education market and its track record of fielding and managing large national insourced and outsourced sales teams; as well as its ability to accelerate new top line revenue and market share capture. OUr Partner Sales OverDrive performed a comprehensive market analysis and assessment on which it based an end-to-end sales and marketing growth strategy and sales acceleration plan that described all of the actions, tools and resources necessary to meet the long-term objectives of the NRTC.  The plan drew detailed conclusions regarding market dynamics and identified new vertical industries and the means to identify specific opportunity rich school districts on which to concentrate.

Within a month, Sales OverDrive installed its OverDrive™ sales and marketing processes and a variety of new supporting sales tools and techniques needed to drive the new strategy. It included the in-field enrollment tools as well as the tracking, reporting and knowledge capture methodology necessary to enable and manage a best-in-class sales team. Simultaneously Sales OverDrive sourced, screened and recruited the new sales team consisting of regional sales professionals from both the existing group, from our OverDrive™ community and elsewhere. We also added a National VP Sales from Sales OverDrive’s own senior ranks to drive the new sales process. Next, Sales OverDrive optimized the company’s sales organization by providing ongoing K-12 district by district research and inside sales professionals focused on high probability opportunities, thereby making it much more effective.

Sales OverDrive selected and implemented an improved sales force automation tool with which management could measure performance, identify and institutionalize best practices and design increasingly effective training and coaching protocols. Sales OverDrive built a cohesive compensation strategy and specific measurement and reward Systems. A “Talent Exchange” teaming model was implemented to leverage the strengths of the individual contributors and create a teaming Environment. Sales OverDrive then built and trained sales and marketing “pursuit teams” focused on specific priority targets and consisted of field sales, marketing and subject matter experts, which built new pipeline opportunities while closing sales with near-term prospects and clients very rapidly. Sales OverDrive is also providing ongoing product development, marketing, PR and technical assistance.

Results
Within sixty days of project launch the prior sales organization was reduced by two thirds, and the remaining group was reconstituted to include stronger, more skilled sales professionals supported by researchers and a strong inside sales group centralized and managed in Sales OverDrive’s Dallas Contact Center. We also assumed responsibility for Marketing and PR and rerouted all inbound 800 calls into our Contact Center.

Sales OverDrive has created increased market traction, brand awareness, and the cost effectiveness of sales and marketing spend. After 90 days of project launch, the pipeline of prospects and new closed business increased by 50%. Within one year, revenue from new name accounts increased 300 percent.

Sales OverDrive is on track to double the revenue of this organization in 3 years with approximately half the budget expended previously. The NRTC has also recently extended its multi-year contract with Sales OverDrive.

Newgistics Logistics & Technology

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About the Client
Based in Austin, Texas, Newgistics is the premier provider of intelligent returns management solutions for the retail, medical supplies, healthcare, service parts, telecommunications equipment and computing industries. Newgistics has developed the most extensive returns management network in the industry that spans the entire return cycle and includes dynamic barcode integration with customer data at the point-of-sale, advanced returns notifications, optimized return transportation and customized reporting for inventory management, processing and disposition.

Situation
For over 18 months the company had experienced significant difficulty in accessing key targets, initiating sales dialogues and closing new sales. While the sales team was experienced in retail and logistics, and had experience selling in other environments, they struggled to reach senior decision makers and to communicate the Newgistics value proposition in a compelling way.

As a result, the company gained no new top line growth and very little growth in existing accounts during this period. Management struggled, but was unable to isolate or quantify the root causes of the problem. The Newgistics value proposition, while based on a shared revenue model, paled in comparison to the cost and organizational pain of implementing the Newgistics Solution, which directly impacted up to five client technology platforms.

Considerations
The sales executives failed to team effectively with the organization’s technical and industry experts. Since the sales process was incomplete and sales executives were unable to sell abstract services and solutions at the C-level, they sold mostly on price at lower levels in the prospect organization. The lack of effective sales processes made it impossible for the company to capture and repeat any sales successes and best practices they might come across.

No inside sales resources were used to leverage the sales executives’ time and little or no effort was devoted to effective lead identification, opportunity identification and qualification. In addition to minimal sales process, there was no account management process or cohesive strategy linking sales, marketing and post-sale client management. No business cases or customer focus groups were used to support product development activities. This resulted in an increasing loss of customer confidence in the company’s ability to deliver product releases that  responded to their stated needs. Although Newgistics had an excellent management team and had employed several prestigious marketing and sales strategy firms, the company was unable to identify the underlying problems and take the necessary steps to “break the code” and jumpstart sales.

Solution
Newgistics selected our partner Sales OverDrive to take advantage of its great track record and hands-on expertise in assisting companies jumpstart sales and accelerate market share capture in very tough and complex business-to-business environments. Sales OverDrive performed the market analysis necessary to develop a new go-to-market strategy, positioning, and value propositions that would appeal to senior executives of large, multi-channel retail organizations. To ensure that the optimal go-to-market strategy, supporting sales processes and the best utilization of resources were in place, Sales OverDrive performed a proof of concept analysis to validate the effectiveness of this new and unusual OverDrive strategy and the client-facing sales tools. This allowed Newgistics to redefine its strategy and its sales, marketing and product development processes, putting them in proper alignment with the agendas of its prospects’ key stakeholders. Sales OverDrive then implemented the OverDrive sales process and a variety of new supporting sales tools and techniques needed to drive the new strategy. Next, Sales OverDrive optimized the company’s allocation of resources, augmenting the sales team with pre-sales executives, inside sales professionals and additional sales executives. Sales OverDrive sourced, screened, recruited & trained the new sales team on the Sales OverDrive processes and added an Interim Sales Leader to assist the existing VP Sales in driving the new processes. Sales OverDrive selected and implemented an improved sales force automation tool which management then used to measure performance, identify and institutionalize best practices and design more appropriate training and coaching protocols. Next, Sales OverDrive built a comprehensive account management plan and processes, compensation models, and measurement and reward systems that tied the activities of sales, marketing, product development and account management together. This created greatly enhanced teaming, performance and accountability. Once the sales and account management teams were deployed, Sales OverDrive provided ongoing advice and field coaching to drive results. Sales Over-Drive also trained the sales staff and provided ongoing coaching and mentoring for the Sales Leader’s sales staff.

In the first 90 days following implementation, the firm closed three major deals and doubled its pipeline. In less than a year, Newgistics gained numerous landmark clients, developed a predictable pipeline of realistic opportunities, shortened it sales cycle by 40% and increased new top line sales from almost zero to $22 Million. By the end of the second year, Sales OverDrive had helped Newgistics reach $44 Million in new revenue and over $80 Million by the end of the third year. Newgistics now commands the largest share of the dedicated return business in the multi-channel retail industry.