What do you do when your market is contracting, your key competitors are going out of business, and the investors who bought your business mandate that you quadruple your size in four years? CLP Resources, Inc., based in Reno, Nevada, faced that quandary and developed a winning plan. To grow its business, despite economic obstacles, it concluded that a new culture of sales was the solution to its own challenges, as well as its customer’s.
CLP did more than improve its approach to sales, they completely transformed it. This new sales approach centers around a consultative sales method. Ed Nubel, CLP Vice President of Sales and Marketing, envisioned a new approach so central to the sales effort that the sales team, “would be not only champions of it, they would be fanatics. The new sales method needed to become part of the fabric of who they are.”
It took the crash of the economy and the arrival of fresh leadership to bring to light CLP’s need for a new sales culture. Founded in 1987, the company connects highly skilled tradespeople to construction and facilities contractors in need of qualified temporary employees. Customers were easy to come by throughout the 1990’s as the construction industry boomed. The sales team consisted of individuals with a construction background who gained most of their customers through direct marketing methods. No set sales philosophy existed for the 45 branches. Sales managers operated independently and used a variety of sales philosophies.
As the economy worsened, the construction industry slowed significantly, down 5-10% over the last two years. At the time of its purchase by new owners in 1999, it became clear CLP, as a corporation, would need to reconsider its direction and plan for the future. From this point forward, the company’s focus would be on exceeding customer expectations. A unified, consistent approach to the market was vital.
“We needed to depend on the sales team to carry the message of the company,” Nubel reported. They moved away from a relatively inexperienced trade-focused sales force to a sales team with a proven record of sales success. “The best gauge of whether or not you can sell is whether or not you’ve done it before successfully.” With the right people in place, the next step was to unify CLP’s sales approach.
The desire to differentiate itself from its competition, communicate the value of its services to its customers, and develop a platform for growth is what led CLP into a partnership with ELA, a San Francisco-based firm specializing in human performance improvement and sales force development. The partnership between CLP and ELA has become a vital part of CLP’s sales structure. ELA managing partner Peter Krammer studied CLP as a complete organization, and recommended a learning system based on Wilson Learning’s Counselor Salesperson program as part of the solution. Counselor Salesperson focuses on creating a consultative partnership between salespeople and their customers based on trust and the mutual desire for the client’s success within their market.
Finding the right resources to work with the sales force was as important as finding the right sales program. “We needed someone with sales experience.” Nubel said, adding; “Only salespeople can train salespeople. It means something when someone with blood on the saddle is standing in front of you saying, ‘Yes, this really does have meaning.’ We needed someone with real life stories of success.” ELA found the ideal background and credentials CLP was looking for in Jack Wainwright, a long-term consultant with an extensive sales and training background. Wainwright brought with him an understanding of the challenges CLP faced. Wainwright used a Wilson Learning process to bring about a very similar transformation in company-wide sales processes at Sears, Roebuck and Company.
When Wainwright met with CLPs’ upper management, he was impressed. “The company had thought through their vision and mission, and they meant every word of it. They had the courage and foresight to remain flexible within that plan. There was a great deal of follow through and alignment, everyone moving toward the vision.”
As part of an ongoing educational process, 70 members of CLP’s sales and marketing team participated in the three-day Counselor Salesperson program. These sessions focus on introducing key concepts and reinforcing them, through role-playing tailored to CLP’s unique market, customers, and challenges. A fourth day of training focused on CLP’s own products and process knowledge, and was tailored to embody the principles introduced in the Counselor Salesperson course.
Results at CLP were evident as early as three weeks after the initial training. As the sales team began to communicate its ability to provide solutions to its customers’ problems, customers responded positively. Prospects, previously visited unsuccessfully by CLP salespeople several times, suddenly bought and expressed a desire to form an on-going collaboration. After 21 months of declining sales, CLP’s numbers are skyrocketing. Sales have increased $100,000 every week following the first Counselor Salesperson session. Success stories flow in and are shared company-wide.
Nubel believes continual reinforcement remains crucial to the success of the program. “If you approach this as ‘I’m going to buy training,’ it’s not going to work. When you conduct training, the next week everyone goes back to prior methods.” To counter this, CLP sales managers were trained to teach and reinforce the Counselor Salesperson principles. Salespeople continually reexamine their performance as it relates to the Counselor sales process. “Half of our regional sales meetings are devoted to skills practice. Once or twice a week I send out emails with the name of a single model, a reminder of the various techniques,” explains Nubel.
“This is a holistic process; it becomes part of everything we do,” continues Nubel. The sales approach is so intuitive and central to the CLP, it now shapes its language. Sales managers communicate to their sales team using the terminology of the sales process they want improved or strengthened. Regional sales managers ride along with salespeople and find it easy to pinpoint areas for improvement using concepts and terminology used company-wide. The organization as a whole remains focused on fulfilling and delivering on a promise of superior customer service and value-added assistance for customers and prospects.
With a stronger customer-based sales approach, CLP steadily advances toward its vision of the future. This company is not only surviving, it is thriving.
For more information on CLP Resources, please contact them through their website: www.clp.com.