Sales Force Effectiveness Consulting

L.E.K. Consulting helps clients across industries improve and accelerate sales performance by ensuring that the right processes and enablers are in place to maximize the commercial team’s effectiveness. Sales and marketing processes need to align with the customer strategy and go-to-market model throughout the sales cycle to realize sales gains. Sales enablers, such as the compensation scheme for the team, key performance indicators, systems and tools, and training programs, must also be established to ensure that the sales team has the best support. We advise and support management teams on establishing the right infrastructure to root out sales productivity drains, align incentives and, ultimately, drive sales growth.

Overview

Companies are increasingly being asked to be more agile, be more efficient and do more with less. M&A activity and the expansion of solutions sales are increasing demands to cross-sell and upsell products and services. To compound matters, many companies that experienced downsizing in sales and key support areas during the recession have been slow to bring resources back. In addition, customers are demanding customized solutions, and greater support and responsiveness. Companies can no longer rely on just selling great products and services. They often need to offer value-added solutions to their customers that better align with the customers’ needs and help deliver a specific outcome.

The “one size fits all” sales process is no longer sufficient to capture new customers, or to grow the share of wallet with existing customers, and does not distinguish strategic opportunities from average ones. Companies need to re-examine their sales processes and supporting sales enablers to drive higher productivity and return on investment from their sales resources.

How we help

Sales and Marketing Effectiveness is the third component of our Commercial Excellence framework, specifically focused on defining improvements in commercial processes and their key enablers.

L.E.K.’s Commercial Excellence Framework: Sales and Marketing Effectiveness

Evaluating key processes is the first stage of establishing strong sales and marketing support. Sales enablers must also be refined to ensure that the sales team has the best support possible. This can include the compensation scheme for the team, key performance indicators to monitor success, systems and tools to facilitate the customer management process, and HR support for recruiting, hiring and continuous training.

We focus on generating quick wins while helping our clients build their sales and marketing capabilities for the long term. In our experience, working closely with clients on these issues often yields incremental revenue growth of around 5-10% with low-to-no incremental capital investment.