Key Stakeholders
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Chad Wilkins, President of HSA Bank
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Kevin Robertson, Chief Revenue Officer
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Ed Seaver, SVP of Relationship Management
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Jim Kelly, SVP Sales, East
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Scott Kiever, SVP Sales, West
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Melanee Cira, Growth Content Strategist
Industry
Raymond is the North American leader in electric lift trucks.
regaining market share
through sales transformation
situation
The Raymond Company operates through 21 dealers across the U.S. and Canada—each with its own unique culture and sales team. As Raymond sought to increase its share of the market, it found little consistency of message or sales approach across the dealer network.
objectives
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Regaining market share from top competitor.
Raymond consistently found itself neck-and-neck with its nearest competitor, and it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain its market position. -
Increasing margins in a hyper-competitive market space.
While growing market share was difficult, it could still be accomplished by selling equipment at a low margin. But, Raymond needed to grow market share while also improving margins. This would require a major transformation. -
Accelerating the shift from “lift-truck company” to “solutions provider.”
To achieve the first two objectives, the leadership at Raymond understood it would have to adopt a very different approach to selling—and the change would have to be embraced across the entire dealer network.
“There were three aspects to the program for moving our team to a solutions provider orientation: 1) Getting everybody speaking the same language in front of the customer and talking about the customer’s business. 2) Aligning around how we’re managing our accounts and sales cycles. 3) Adopting a common framework for how we coach and lead our salespeople.”
David Furman, Raymond VP, Marketing
approach
DSG worked with Raymond to enable the development of the CORE (Creating One Raymond Enterprise) Program--a sales transformation approach focused on three areas:
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“Recipe books” equipping the sales team with what to do (sales process playbook) what to say (a sales messaging playbook), and how to coach (a sales leadership playbook)
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Application-Oriented Training to equip the named account team and dealer sales people with “how to” deliver the new message and execute the new sales approach
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Ongoing Reinforcement & Coaching to build structure and accountability that would ensure lasting behavior change
“We have a partnership with DSG. We started out having a transactional relationship, and it’s developed into a real partnership. As long as I’m at the Raymond Corporation and DSG is still in business, they are an extension of our culture.”
Chuck Pascarelli, Raymond President, Sales & Marketing Division
DSG insight
Specific contributions by DSG that accelerated the transformation at Raymond:
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Identifying “Attack and Defend” Accounts to provide focus and accountability. Every sales rep identified five “Attack Accounts” – new accounts they would actively pursue. They also each identified five “Defend Accounts” – existing accounts they would actively protect from the competition.
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Getting all the dealers on the same page through the use of well packaged playbooks. Chuck Pascarelli, President of the Sales and Marketing Division at Raymond, had a vision for “Recipe Books” that would get the diverse cultures within Raymond on the same page. By collaborating with DSG on the development and implementation of playbooks, all of the dealers and their sales teams mastered and adopted common messaging and processes.
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Developing new tools to enable a solutions conversation. The creation of a whiteboard conversation tool equipped the sales team to deliver higher-level value propositions and lead more strategic conversations with customers.
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Sustaining the sales transformation. DSG worked closely with the sales leadership team to create a “Sustain” plan to ensure lasting behavior change and results. Key activities included manager coaching calls, dealer planning sessions, advanced training workshops, development of advanced tools, and ongoing program management.
“Last year, we had our most profitable year ever and we also created the highest market share ever. The DSG program was a key contributor to this success through the structure and the processes and the "Recipe Books" we implemented in collaboration with their team.”
Chuck Pascarelli
impact
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Raymond achieved its dual objectives of increased market share and increased margins this last fiscal year—enjoying record market share and record profitability. With growth of almost 25%, Raymond credits the sales transformation initiative as a key ingredient to the company’s success. Beyond the quantitative achievements, the diverse dealer teams are now united as allies as well as advocates for the larger enterprise. Most of all, the sales transformation program established the criticality of a very specific priority – developing new relationships. New relationships have become a rallying cry for the organization and provide the foundation for future growth and profitability.
“When we look at the return on investment for the DSG program, it’s worth its weight in gold. Every time a sales person in our business develops a relationship with a new customer or sells deeper into an existing account, of course we see increased business and profit. But the real, long-term value is all the recurring revenue that is created as an annuity based on those new accounts and stronger relationships.”