Case Studies

Intercept sales order book at a record high & they are 125% over sales target

The Client

Intercept IT, part of Alternative Networks IT & Telecoms PLC since January 2014, is a leading cloud computing and virtualisation service provider to SMEs and larger corporates. The company has built strategic relationships with many of the world’s leading vendors, including Citrix, Microsoft and VMware in order to provide its clients with quality solutions.

The Supplier

Orbit Business Development Limited is a specialist people development consultancy for the IT sector with particular expertise in Sales Leadership development. Orbit is well known for its powerful ‘solution selling’ and account management programmes. The company also has a strong reputation for assisting organisations with M&A strategy both pre and post execution.

The Brief

Stuart Grist, Sales Director, Intercept IT said, “Pre-Orbit I knew I had a talented sales team. I knew I had a first-class portfolio of services. But I realised my team needed help fine tuning their skills in terms of the complex ‘solution sale’ and I needed to get them to a level of account management skill that I knew they would need in the future, as I played my part in preparing the business for acquisition. Orbit came highly recommended to me by someone I trust as the right people for the job, and when I met Orbit’s CEO, David Hewitt and Programme Development Director, Gill Barstow I knew we were in safe and capable hands.”

The Solution

Orbit developed a bespoke sales growth programme, delivered over a six-month period, in bite-sized chunks, combining formal training, account review sessions and one-to-one coaching. It began with a 360 psychometric profiling exercise to determine the sales team’s communications styles and how individual styles impact on others. The overall programme focus covered 4 key areas and was built around the way Intercept’s sales people work in different scenarios.

• THE WAY THEY WORK AS A TEAM
  With emphasis on developing a unified sales approach with a strong focus on long term and influential relationships.
• THE WAY THEY WORK WITH CLIENTS
  With emphasis on creating relationships at senior management level, understanding who/what is important and conducting business orientated conversations
• THE WAY THEY MANAGE THEIR TIME
  With emphasis on being more effective in use of time, focusing on the areas which will generate the greatest returns, e.g. account planning, prospecting, selling a full mix of Itercept’s IT propositions to a wider audience.
• THE WAY THEY WORK WITH OTHERS
  With emphasis on operating an inclusive way with seamless teamwork throughout the sales and deliver process.

Intercept IT’s Top 5

We asked Stuart Grist and his sales team to highlight the top 5 benefits they feel the Orbit Sales Growth Progamme has delivered.

• WE ARE WINNING LARGER DEALS.
  Stuart Grist, Intecept’s Sales Director said, “We are winning some very significant deals as a direct result of what we learnt on the Orbit programme. I believe this is because we are now having more business orientated conversations with our accounts. I see evidence of this throughout the sales team now, but one particular example stands out for me. One of my team explained to me he is now addressing people with undertones of respect rather than cowering down to them and devaluing himself. Previously he would have gone for what he calls the ‘quick grab’ after asking about pain points. But now he is opening up wider more strategic conversations and leading to solutions on a wider scale. As a result we are seeing larger deals and in many cases we are extending the length of our deals.”
• WE HAVE MORE CONFIDENCE CHALLENGING CLIENTS.
  Stuart Grist explained, “Because we are now practising true ‘solution selling’ we are challenging our clients in a professional way. Orbit’s ‘challenger sale’ material demonstrated to us that in order to help our clients we must challenge their thinking at times. Afterall that is why they are coming to us as experts in our field. A good example of this was with an invitation to tender we received a couple of months ago. Initially we were to decline the tender for a whole host of reasons. After we met with the client to explain why we were not planning to respond, the whole client relationship was turned completely around. They loved our ideas and we became the preferred supplier. They have since decided they want to move forward with Intercept and do things ‘our way’.”
• BETTER POSITIONING IN CLIENT ACCOUNTS
  Stuart continued, “My team have impressed me since the training with their ability to re-engage with some of their older, what we termed, ‘dead’ accounts. They are forging deeper relationships and getting introductions higher up the value chain. We monitor and measure everything and the numbers of face-to-face with new people in existing accounts has grown significantly. Our referrals from clients are growing too.”
• ACCOUNT PLANNING BECOMING MORE A WAY OF LIFE.
  Chris Harrison, Sales Executive told us, “I used to think account planning was a boring administrative exercise with very little point. Orbit has shown me that is not the case. They encouraged me to try it their way and the gains I have had from it have been phenomenal. I now do it as a natural part of my every day role and actually enjoy it. I feel that I am far more in control because of it.”
• BETTER CO-OPERATION BETWEEN SALES & DELIVERY TEAMS.
  Richard Callis, Professional Services Director, said, “There is real evidence that the sales team and delivery team are working better together. I see examples every day of people from both teams working hard to forge better relationships. They have worked out what needs to be done to make things run more smoothly. Communication has improved vastly and there is a clear mutual respect building with the realisation both teams are actually working towards the same end goal.”

The Final Word

Stuart Grist has the final word. He said, “For me the sales results speak for themselves. “Intercept was the highest performing sales team in Alternative Networks group last year, over target by 125% even though we had sales targets 20% higher than last year. Also the sales order book is at a record high having grown by 35%. The Orbit programme has played a major part in our sales success the last 18 months and has equipped my team with solid sales skills that I am sure they will depend upon for the whole of their sales careers.”

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