Challenge

Forced to cut annual revenue guidance after its first half year missed expectations, a global enterprise cloud software company wanted to use its sales kick-off (SKO) as a catalyst to improve performance.

Results

• H2 results exceeded expectations
• 17.8% improvement in number of enterprise accounts moving to subscription in Q1
• 24.6% increase in mid-market subscription
• 37% improvement in sales employee retention by end of FY

Approach

Anonymous feedback from sales called out team capability gaps, strategy alignment, and messaging as hurdles to delivering upon the company strategy.

Strategy to Revenue invited sales managers to a planning call with the global VP of sales. This laid out the strategy for the year, their key role in delivering it, and the learning and development work required of them before the SKO. Monthly check-ins were scheduled with regional sales leaders to confirm managers were on track.

Short video messages from senior leaders were distributed to the rest of the sales organization. The videos teased the theme of the SKO and provided light reading material and a short quiz on new products which would form the main focus of the event. For the event itself, an escape-game theme was used. Groups, guided by sales managers, were tasked with answering questions, positioning products, and identifying customers to build a pipeline. Each activity moved the team closer to escaping. Life-lines introduced senior leaders into the team discussion. This enabled leaders to hear directly where people felt they lacked the tools, skills or knowledge to progress to the next part of the game, and work with them to deliver a solution.

Each team escaped with an identified list of accounts to follow up with, and a clear idea of how to position the conversation. Upon escape, teams reviewed their areas of weakness during the game, looked at how they could address these and where they needed help from the business. The sales team had self-diagnosed where they lacked the skills to deliver the new strategy and were more open filling them. Plus, the marketing team had a clear understanding of where gaps needed to be filled in field marketing collateral and messaging. Having identified the role-based competencies for each sales role ahead of the SKO, Strategy to Revenue, in conjunction with HR, was able to role out an e-learning self-assessment and training tool immediately after the event. Sales managers continued to drive the program. Regular check-ins between sales managers and regional sales leads continued to ensure all teams were on track with both the skills training and the pipeline development.