Transforming the Digital River Message & Ramping New Hires

Digital River engaged DSG to accelerate a strategic sales transformation along with an effort to onboard new salespeople faster. A sales playbook approach helped Digital River speed up the time to close each deal, achieve a higher close rate, and increase the average deal size. A critical success factor in the field was improved storytelling and getting every salesperson delivering a consistent sales message.

The big idea at Digital River was to transform from a do-it-all-for-you, one-stop-shop of e-commerce services to a much thinner solution stack. At the same time, we had growth expectations to double net new revenue coming in while onboarding a large group of new people. The Digital River message had changed so our sales training had to change with it.

One of the outcomes we expected from this transformation was an improvement in the speed to close. We also expected an improved close ratio combined with an increase in deal size. All those outcomes have been fully realized.

I’m particularly proud of how much more effective we are at onboarding new salespeople. The traditional time to close was 9 to 10 months for a new rep before they got their first deal. We’re now seeing reps who've achieved their productivity targets in a much shorter amount of time.

Because Digital River has always been and will likely always be a complex sale, we look intently at the consistency of the storytelling through our reps. That includes how we articulate our value proposition and how we run customer meetings. It was previously a snowflake strategy where everyone looked a little different. The format and sales playbook framework that DSG brought to us created consistency across the sales team which allows us to test our messaging and continue to evolve the way we tell our story and align to the customer’s world.