Case studies

BMT - Mobilising world-leading technical specialists to identify opportunities and sell more.

As part of its annual appraisal process, BMT Defence Services identified a need for a company-wide sales training programme to improve the knowledge, confidence and expertise of their technical staff in pitching for business. The company has a small dedicated Business Development team charged with providing strategic leadership, opportunity qualification and capture planning for large projects but the management of existing customers and generation of repeat business is widely devolved to technical delivery staff, who needed to recognise, understand and act on sales opportunities.

The sales training programme was to be structured to cover best practice in sales techniques and tools, contextualised within the boundaries of their core market. The company ran a competitive tender process to select a supplier based on a number of key outcome requirements for technical staff:

• A better understanding of selling;

• A recognition that the whole process of working with the customer supports selling;

• A view that selling is valued by the company;

• A choice of sales tools, soft skills and approaches they are comfortable using in one-to-one conversations;

• More confidence, willingness and enthusiasm about the selling they do.

The tender was won by Enabling Selling who proposed a programme based on 2.5 days of group facilitation and individual coaching calls delivered over six months. The pilot programme commenced in 2008 with 9 delegates and since then 19 groups and over 170 staff have completed this ongoing programme. Since 2008 a number of changes have been made to the course based on delegate feedback, changes in the company's core market and direct involvement of the Business Development team in delivery of the programme, making it a truly collaborative process and ensuring the company's changing needs are promptly addressed.

The programme has been in place during a period of sustained growth in the business, with opportunity success rates rising by over 50%. As a result of the success of the programme, Enabling Selling has been commissioned to deliver other programmes in collaboration with the company's Business Development team and another third party provider.

What BMT had to say

Muir Macdonald - Managing Director at BMT Defence Services Ltd
"Ann has achieved impressive results with BMT Defence Services, helping our people have the confidence to engage in the right conversations with our clients - getting to the heart of our people's fears and misconceptions. She has researched and understood the underlying culture of the company and worked with it to become a trusted member of our community, always achieving very positive feedback from all her work with us."

Eugene Morgan - Commercial Director.
"Enabling Selling has become an integral part of our corporate training programme. The course fully recognises our unique challenges and whilst the basic techniques, tools and processes are generic, their interpretation within the context of our business is fully understood and applied by Ann. Upon programme completion, staff feel far better equipped to engage with customers in a sales situation."

Delegates:
"Before I would try to give the contact to Business Development as I didn't feel I had the skills to do it. Now I do. The old me would have asked the 20 questions - I now realise I can just ask a few good ones and get a lot more info."

"It has helped selling to become a natural process - it has taken away the angst."

"Realising it is progressive and understanding how it all fits together has given me the confidence to do it."

"I now don't hide behind convoluted e mail -I just have the conversation instead"

"I am a lot more confident being able to sit down especially with people I haven't met before and am now having the conversations about other opportunities I want to have. I know I will have the questions to ask - I used to run out of things to say and often not start conversations in case this happened."

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