Key Stakeholders
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Tracey Peacock, VP and Director, Strategy and Business Development
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Skip Paterson, VP Human Resources and Administration
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Rick Catoe, Director, North American Sales
Industry
Global manufacturer of market leading brands such as Cannon, VEAM and BIW Connector systems, providing connectors and interconnects for the military, aerospace, industrial, oil & gas, medical and transportation markets.
accelerating revenue growth
through new messaging and consistent sales execution
objectives
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Establishing a common global sales process to increase efficiency and discipline
New leadership at ITT’s ICS division recognized a need for developing a more sophisticated discipline around meeting numbers—establishing a methodology for prioritizing where to focus efforts to maximize outcomes. -
Creating a consistent and simple sales message that could be delivered by the sales team but also by distributors and partners ICS recognized there existed pockets of sales excellence, but huge variations within and across regions, driving a need for consistent messaging. The message would need to be powerful yet simple—applicable across languages and cultures, and still easily internalized and delivered by ITT teams as well as affiliated distributors and partners.
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Increasing the internal authority of the sales team with the goal of growing business
In the company’s classic engineering culture, the sales team was not properly recognized or heard. So, the leadership wanted to upgrade the visibility of the sales team and shift toward a more sales and market-driven culture.
“While there had been previous training (canned solutions), there was not a unique and clarified ITT/ICS sales process. Explaining our process to a new employee was difficult because it was not captured in any one place. Working opportunities internally from early identification, qualification, proactive engagement to accurate forecast was inconsistent and difficult to describe through various functions within the organization.”
Rick Catoe, ITT Director NA Sales
approach
DSG worked with the ITT Interconnect Solutions team on a transformation focused on four areas:
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DSG helped ITT identify the most appropriate set of thought leaders from across ITT’s global organization, who in turn helped create the messaging, processes, and tools
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Collaboratively-designed ITT sales messaging, process, and leadership playbooks to create discipline and repeatability
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Globally deployed training in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America to equip the sales team in “how to” deliver the new messaging and execute the clarified sales process and forecast methodology. Identified regional champions to drive adaption of the new messaging and tools.
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Assessment and coaching of the team to identify and pursue top opportunities
“What I really liked about DSG training is they brought the science of sales to the organization. This was necessary to get buy-in from a technical sales organization, and really, from the rest of the organization. This was very powerful.”
Tracey Peacock, ITT VP & Director, Strategy and Business Development
DSG insight
Specific contributions by DSG that accelerated the transformation at ITT ICS:
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Identifying audiences that could help gain access to the right people early in a company’s buying cycle in order to sell higher-margin work. DSG helped create messaging to address different points of a product development cycle—positioning ITT as the long-term partner able to help at any phase, whether in design/testing or in high-volume production.
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Developing clarity around the way the sales team looks at opportunities, territories, and planning. By working with the sales team in every part of the world, DSG helped customize a process that created consistency while also understanding the unique needs of individual markets.
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Creating a sense of excitement and enjoyment around what could be a frightening culture change. DSG helped make the tools created interactively with the ITT sales leadership team, accessible and understandable to both direct sales and reps across the globe— developing a more united and focused sales team in the process.
“DSG customized a solution and met us where we were instead of forcing us to meet them where they were. The DSG approach allowed their team to understand our current state and customize processes that standardized while uniquely uplifting our teams in each region.”
Rick Catoe, ITT Director NA Sales
impact
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ITT revenue grew 15% year over year following the engagement with DSG. The company’s leadership credits the transformation process in conjunction with driving clear priorities, streamlined processes and greater accountability across all functions as the keys to such results. The sales team now delivers the right messages and positioning to create business in net new accounts.
“Each sales rep is now managing their territory as a business and better communicating issues and needs. They do the detective work to identify big opportunities and clearly articulate the support they need in order to close.”