strategic account management methodology - a review by tony hackett

Strategic Account Management Methodology – a modern review

Tony Hackett

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mrtonyhackett

Blog: www.mypublicbrand.com

Twitter: @mypublicbrand

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mrtonyhackett

http://www.mypublicbrand.com/

1-2 Strategic Account Management www.mypublicbrand.com

Contents 1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................1-4

2 The Tas Group ..........................................................................................................................2-4

2.1 Platform Leadership ..........................................................................................................2-4

Dealmaker’s® TAS® Opportunity Management...........................................................................2-4

Dealmaker’s® TAS ®Account Management .................................................................................2-5

CHAMP ....................................................................................................................................2-5

Problems .................................................................................................................................2-6

2.2 Solutions Offered ..............................................................................................................2-6

Sales Performance Automation .................................................................................................2-6

Sales Leader and Sales Operations Leader:.................................................................................2-7

Sales Training ...........................................................................................................................2-7

Sales Coaching .........................................................................................................................2-7

Sales Coaching Office Infrastructure ..........................................................................................2-7

2.3 The Operations Process.....................................................................................................2-8

Solution Partners......................................................................................................................2-9

Systems Integrators ..................................................................................................................2-9

Independent Consultants ..........................................................................................................2-9

Referral Partners .................................................................................................................... 2-10

Strategic Partners ................................................................................................................... 2-10

Alumni/History....................................................................................................................... 2-10

2.4 Customers ...................................................................................................................... 2-10

Revenue ................................................................................................................................ 2-10

3 Holden International .............................................................................................................. 3-11

3.1 Products/Services ........................................................................................................... 3-11

Holden's Power Base® ............................................................................................................ 3-11

EFOX SOFTWARE .................................................................................................................... 3-12

3.2 The Company ................................................................................................................. 3-13

Location................................................................................................................................. 3-13

Revenue ................................................................................................................................ 3-13

4 Huthwaite.............................................................................................................................. 4-15


Approach/Services ................................................................................................................. 4-15

4.1 Pricing ............................................................................................................................ 4-16

4.2 Solutions ........................................................................................................................ 4-16

Huthwaite’s SPIN® Solution Suite ............................................................................................ 4-16

Locations: .............................................................................................................................. 4-20

5 Sales Performance International (SPI) ...................................................................................... 5-21

Solution Selling® Learning Library ............................................................................................ 5-22

Tools Offered ......................................................................................................................... 5-22

Service and Technology Offerings ............................................................................................ 5-23

CRM Enablement ................................................................................................................... 5-23

Marketing Alignment .............................................................................................................. 5-23

Training and Coaching Services ............................................................................................... 5-24

Company ............................................................................................................................... 5-24

Training Approach .................................................................................................................. 5-24

6 Performancemethods.com...................................................................................................... 6-26

Global Presence ..................................................................................................................... 6-27

7 Revenue Storm....................................................................................................................... 7-27

Measuring Success ................................................................................................................. 7-28

Interactive Tools..................................................................................................................... 7-29


1 Introduction Strategic Account Management (SAM) is a management approach adopted by selling companies

aimed at building a portfolio of loyal strategic customers. By offering them on a long term basis, a

service/product offering tailored for their specific needs it is a progression towards a form of

‘partnership’ or alliance with major customers characterised by joint decision making and problem

solving, integrated business processes and collaborative working across buyerseller boundaries,

described as a process of “relational development”.

2 The Tas Group The Tas group believes in delivering sustained customer value is passion. They help their customers

achieve consistent and increased revenue, accurate sales forecasts, and greater sales effectiveness.

They have combined their training tools with Dealmaker to achieve comprehensive training and

reinforcement.

2.1 Platform Leadership The unique value is the result of combining two disciplines; (1) intelligent software applications, and

(2) deep sales methodologies. Innovation is at the core of the companies’ efforts and the

Dealmaker® intelligent software application is the engine driving revenue growth for customers .

According to the Aberdeen Group, customers of The TAS Group realise 21% greater quota

attainment1.

Dealmaker’s® TAS® Opportunity Management Dealmaker is in use by more than 850,000 sales people worldwide. The software is used by sales

organisations to gain the clarity necessary to improve individual and overall team effectiveness by

providing on-demand sales best practice learning and application - creating a repeatable process to:

Increase win rates

Improve forecast accuracy

Reduce sales cycles

Increase deal size

Reduce discounting

Created competitive advantage

Grow pipeline size and quality

1 Web Content from, “Company Overview” by thetasgroup, undated, at: http://thetasgroup.com/ourcompany.html#ixzz1euBYlv28

http://www.thetasgroup.com/effectivenessproblem.html

http://www.thetasgroup.com/forecastproblem.html

http://www.thetasgroup.com/whitepaper/competitiveadvantage.html

http://thetasgroup.com/ourcompany.html#ixzz1euBYlv28


Dealmaker’s® TAS ®Account Management Managing large scale, complex, global relationships demands a high level of competence, market

understanding, and knowledge not only of the customer, but their ecosystem and value chain. The

TAS Group helps account managers focus on the key competencies that are critical for success:

Developing, documenting, and executing multiple-year strategies and plans

Understanding the customer’s market, competition, business partnerships, and extended

value chain

Linking solutions in the most compelling context by providing the most value to the

stakeholders who care the most

Increasing high margin, predictable revenue while promoting customer retention,

satisfaction, stability, and growth

CHAMP CHAMP (Channel and Alliance Management Process) enables the user to create and manage

predictable revenue streams from partnerships. CHAMP Partner Planning provides the method

and tools to uncover a partner’s key business goals and objectives . It also aids channel managers in

standardising their partner management processes and aligning activities to produce a positive,

measurable impact on partner productivity, proposals, and close rates.

Recruit and manage the “right” partners

Collaborate more effectively with partners during joint deals

Build and maintain “trusted advisor” status with partners

Achieve more consistent and predictable revenue growth through partners

Gain more mindshare with partners

Understand partner business drivers

Improve pipeline management and forecasting

Understand partner portfolios, and how best to leverage their time, money, and resources

View channel activity from the partner’s perspective

Improve go-to-market strategy execution

http://www.thetasgroup.com/whitepaper/greataccountmgmt.html


Problems Revenue improvement: Improve pipeline quality and size, increase win rates, and shorten sales

cycles. And with Dealmaker reinforcing and measuring best practices across the sales team every

day, the company gets a revenue boost that lasts and actually improves over time.

Sales Forecasting: Sales people spend on average 2.5 hours per week on sales forecasting – and in

most cases deals do not close as forecasted. Dealmaker software removes guesswork out of

forecasting by removing sales people’s subjectivity and guides them to truly understand when a de al

will close. Accurate sales forecasts result because of objective in-depth analysis of the team’s actual

performance and knowledge of what it takes to close deals.

Effectiveness Problems: TAS workshops are supplemented by Dealmaker virtual learning for pre-

workshop knowledge transfer, and post-workshop reinforcement. This eliminates the average 87%

drop in retention typical within 30 days of learning in traditional classroom sales training. Post-

training, Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation platform integrates with CRM system so that the

sales person applies what they learned.

2.2 Solutions Offered For the above discussed problems of revenue improvement, sales forecasting, effectiveness

problems, the company have devised solutions that is a combination of training and automation.

Sales Performance Automation Research has shown that people overwhelmingly favor an on-the-job learning process over a time-

consuming one or multi-day workshop, while technological advances like web 2.0 have the ability to

make people more productive than ever before.

Creators of ‘Sales Performance Automation’, The TAS Group has been developing a more efficient

sales learning and applying system for selling organisation since 2005. This system is the Dealmaker

Sales Performance Automation software, which integrates transparently into the CRM system.

The Dealmaker provides an intellgent solutions to the Sales Professional:

Leading sales process and methodology to standardise best practice, guides the professional

on opportunities to work on, what to do next and how to maximise chance of winning.

Is fully configurable to every business and uses intelligent automation to provide coaching

and deliver insight on deals, sales cycle and sales velocity

Eliminates the need to manually update forecasts Dealmaker calculates them automatically


Provides graphical opportunity and account management maps that allow the user to

explore business problems and uncover solutions as a team and together with customers.

Sales Leader and Sales Operations Leader: Integrates deeply with CRM system to provide end-to-end analytics based on accurate,

objective data, and synchronises in real time

Provides accurate forecasts at all levels of the sales organisation, based on proven sales

process rather than laborious, subjective judgments

Supports sales learning, assessment and certification, to teach and reinforce key concepts

and make selling the right way an everyday thing

Incorporates social media – leverages the knowledge of community and alerts the user on

problem areas so that the leader can proactively

Supports the addition of sales methodology

Sales Training TAS Group's Dealmaker on-demand sales performance platform is applicable when there is a need

for extended learning. With the proven TAS methodology, built-in e-learning, and tools to reinforce

and measure sales performance, Dealmaker ensures that sales training investment continues to

generate improved revenues over the long haul.The dealmaker buolds

Sales Effectiveness

Revenue

Forecasting

Sales Coaching 40% improvement in sales performance, impacting the top 30% of their deals.

As a result of coaching Return on Investment in sales goes up 27% according to Gallup and, where

sales coaching is involved, customer loyalty improves by 56%.

Sales Coaching Office Infrastructure The TAS group provides wholesome Sales Coaching Office infrastructure designed to align 5 key

elements to deliver sustained, repeatable and predictable results for customers. These are:


Training and enabling

content and technology

(SCO Resource Center)

Expert coaching of the

sales process

Sales methodology and

specific deals (Coaching

Operations)

Underlying processes

and support systems

(Logistics)

Measurement and reporting (Analytics)

Capturing, assessing and pushing of competitive trends and sales best practices back out to

field sales and sales management (Sales Insights)

Completing a formal embedded coaching system, with a ‘closed loop approach’ to sales

performance improvement

The TAS group aims at providing continued reinforcement of their sales training with the help of

the dealmaker. The typical process includes identification of sales and unique opportunities in the

customer sales cycle, implementation of automation to coach and reinforce training.

Support customer processes, measure, analyse internal processes and competitive trends.

Push sales best practices and field sales management and therefore sustained performance

improvement.

2.3 The Operations Process The solutions offered by TAS are delivered by various groups in each country. The company calls

them certified partners. Some of the partners are:

The Bee Group: United States, Canada and Latin America

Blue Ridge Sales Effectiveness: offers the tools necessary for sales leaders, sales

professionals, organisational development leaders, HR professionals, and organisations to

grow and prosper in unprecedented times.


Durhamlane: is a sales performance Solutions Company that helps organisations increase

their revenues, profits and build stronger customer relationships. Focus is UK

Harwood Partners: helps sales organisations with tools, training and technology to Increase

win rates, shorten sales cycles and measure and manage sales performance. Location US,

Europe and Asia.

Pelorus International: Pelorus International delivers proven expertise and business value

while assisting clients in the execution of Sales process development, forecasting and

pipeline management, channel and alliance management, sales automation tools for CRM

integration and sales management coaching.

CTA Partners: The CTA Partners is a global consulting company that speciali ses in Sales

Coaching, Training and Automation. Focus Latin America

Solution Partners The company partners with top-tier, market-proven intellectual property that helps sales people sell

more effectively. Huthwaite (Dealmaker)

Systems Integrators Companies that have proven expertise in integrating technology solutions into customer

environments partner with the Tas Group.

Ecenta and The TAS Group have collaborated to help SAP customers to increase sales revenue by

integrating theDealmaker platform with SAP CRM.

Storm Technology is a leading business technology consultancy that specialises in building solutions

that help clients gain better value faster from Microsoft technologies. Their solutions on premise or

in the cloud - are based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the Dealmaker platform.

Independent Consultants Representative Companies that provide customers with the highest levels of process, methodology

and technology expertise, strategic thinking, and hands-on skills.

Europe: France, Germany, Italy and Netherlands, UK and Switzerland

North America: Arkansas, District of Columbia, Florida, Texas, Canada, California, Georgia, North

Carolina, Virginia, and Mexico

Asia Pacific: Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand


Referral Partners Independent professionals, industry influencers and professional service consultants who introduce

The TAS Group to prospective clients and in return receive a referral fee. Referral partners receive a

5% referral fee on all closed sales which includes both products and services sold.

Strategic Partners Strategic Partners: The strategic partners for the Tas Group are companies that provide enterprise-

class CRM applications, global social networks, sales productivity, marketing automation and other

capabilities. Its current partners are Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle.

Alumni/History They claim to have trained over 850,000 people. The company’s HQ is in Seattle, and they have a

large presence in Atlanta, as well as satellite offices around North America. Internationally, their

major offices are in Reading, England and Dublin, Ireland2.

The company was founded as Select Selling, Ltd. in 1989 and changed its name to The TAS Group in

July 2006.

As of December 20, 2010, Info Mentis, Inc. was acquired by The TAS Group. Info Mentis, Inc.

operates as a consulting and performance improvement company. It provides skills training

programs, consulting services, coaching, and online support tools.

2.4 Customers Customers of The TAS Group, the world leader in intelligent sales performance automation, attain

team quota 20 percent higher and 54 percent more sales representatives achieve quota than all

other customers using competitive solutions.

Revenue The revenue has been estimated in detail in the excel document. The company can be expected to

be doing business over $500 million. Please note that we have not included estimated of

commissions from CRM and saleforce applications etc.

2 Blog content titled, “Aberdeen Group Reports TAS Group® Customers Are Best-in-Class…” by tasgroupblog, dated October 2011, at: http://www.thetasgroup.com/blog/?p=252

http://www.thetasgroup.com/blog/?p=252


3 Holden International Holden International was founded in 1979. Holden International has helped over 600,000 sales

professionals in 25 countries generate measurable sales process improvement. Their innovative

Power Base® Compete methodology equips sellers with the tools, tips, techni ques and practices to

succeed in today’s transformed marketplace.

Holden provides training for professionals across the organisation. The various levels the company

provides training are:

C-Level Executives: Make Compete Sales an Organisational Competency

Sales Leaders, Managers, and Sales Operations: Learn How to Win Against Competition

Sales Professionals: Win Opportunities, Accounts and Territories

Training and Development Professionals: Drive Adoption across Your Organisation

3.1 Products/Services Power Base® Compete Strategy enables sellers to develop insight into competitive must-win deals

in a way that is coachable and sustainable, through sales training courses and programs that make

Compete Selling a management science.

Holden's Power Base® Holden's Power Base® Compete Selling training workshops are all about engaging and defeating

competition at every level–whether in an individual sales opportunity, across a range of accounts, or

throughout an entire territory.

POWER BASE® SELLING COURSE

Training Eligibility: Training for any level

Length: 2 Days

Students: 20

Winning Sales Plan for an actual “live” sales opportunity

Companion Programs: Power Base® Compete, Compete Sales Manager Coaching, Compete Account

Strategy, Compete Territory Strategy.

POWER BASE® COMPETE SELLING COURSE

Student Eligibility: Advanced Sellers

Length: 2 Days

Students: 20

Compete Strategy for a specific "live" opportunity


Companion Programs: Power Base® Compete Sales Manager Coaching, Compete Account Strategy,

Compete Territory Strategy

POWER BASE® COMPETE ACCOUNT STRATEGY COURSE

Student Eligibility: Sellers managing large accounts

Length: 2 Days

Students: 20

Account Plan (2 pages)

Companion Programs: Power Base® Compete, Compete Sales Manager Coaching, Compete Territory

Strategy

POWER BASE® COMPETE REINFORCERS PROGRAMS

Student Eligibility: Sellers at any level

Length: 2 Days

Students: 20

Enhanced Winning Sales Plan

Companion Programs: Power Base® Compete, Compete Sales Manager Coaching, Compete Account

Strategy, Compete Territory Strategy

POWER BASE® COMPETE SALES MANAGER COACHING

Student Eligibility: Sales Managers

Length: 2 Days

Students: 20

Power Base® Selling

Companion Programs: Power Base® Compete Selling, Compete Account Selling, Compete Territory

Selling

EFOX SOFTWARE Holden's efox Software Solution (Published in 2002) is a technology enablement of sales

methodology, and it plays a crucial role in the successful installation and reinforcement of the

Power Base® Compete Strategy within the organisation.

efox increases user adoption of the installed sales methodology by making it easier to understand

and implement. At the same time, efox facilitates a more disciplined application of the Power Base®

Compete Strategy methodology, which enhances its forecast accuracy.

Typical features that allow easy learning and reinforcement are:


Graphically intense user interface

Valuable insight early in the sales cycle

Enhanced predictive indicators and practical "real-world" input for coaching opportunities

Timely feedback enables more effective sales coaching

POWER BASE INTERACTIVE (PBI): PBI is a web-based sales training tool that accelerates

preparation for a Power Base® Compete Strategy program and for reinforcement of central

concepts after the program.

POWER BASE COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT: Proprietary sales force assessment tool critical in

evaluating the current effectiveness of an organisation's sales professionals, and in gauging their

propensity for sales competency improvement.

FOX-IN-A-BOX VIDEO SERIES FOR MANAGERS: Reinforces key aspects of coaching a Winning Sales

Plan grounded in Power Base® Compete methodology.

POWER UP AUDIO SERIES FOR SELLERS: These 11 audio modules, each lasting 6-10 minutes,

provide on-demand reinforcement of the Winning Sales Plan and Power Base® Compete Strategy

methodology at the office, at home or on the road.

Efox is available in three versions

efox Team Edition

efox CRM Edition

efox Personal Edition

3.2 The Company The company was founded Holden International in 1979. 30+ year history, they have consulted on

hundreds of thousands of competitive deals, and helped over 600 organi sations of all sizes to make

Compete Selling a management science they can understand and replicate.

The company on the average holds 2 Day Public seminars. The average cost per person is $1950.

Location Holden international’s principal presence is focused on US or North America, United Kingdom,

Canada, and Asia Pacific - Japan, China and India. The company has offered sales training to over

600000 sales professionals over a period of 20 years.

Revenue The revenue earned by the company can be estimated over $250 million during 2011.


Holden International is one of the leading companies that has aimed to deliver comprehensive

sales strategy to its customers. The company delivers top down comprehensive strategy for all

levels of professionals.

The interactive software allows reinforcement, and assessment tool. Efox is available in Team,

CRM and Personal edition.


4 Huthwaite Huthwaite is one of the world’s leading sales performance improvement organisations. Founded on

scientifically validated behavioral research, their methodologies include internationally renowned

SPIN® Selling.

Huthwaite assesses the organisation's needs and develops customised sales performance

improvement and coaching programs that drive real business results.

Their sole focus is sales effectiveness.

Approach/Services The services include:

Sales Expertise: Cross Selling , Discounting, New Product Launch, Commoditisation,

Consolidation of Competition, Consolidation of Customers, Mergers & Acquisitions, Margin

Pressure, Transactional Relationships

Basics: Behavior Change, Buying Cycle, Value Drivers

Core Competencies: Face to Face Selling, Sales Strategy, Prospecting, Negotiations,

Presentations, Proposals, Coaching, Pipeline Management

Customised Plans: Creates and delivers the most customised programs in the industry,

analysing business needs, integrating business objectives, and incorporating relevant

contextual content. These include Implementation plan, Branding, content, delivery,

reinforcement.

The Integrated Learning Experience is the most comprehensive and effective sales

performance improvement process expertly engineered to produce both immediate and

long-term individual and organisational selling excellence. These include: Pre-assessment,

Pre-elearning, Instructor led Training, Reinforcement, Post-assessment, Proficiency

Development.

Measurement: Measurement tools include Pre-assessment and post assessment. Post-

survey

Resource Center: Includes a number of resources


4.1 Pricing SPIN® Selling $1595

Winning Sales Strategies $1695

Coaching SPIN® $995

Negotiating Skills $1595

Buyer Focused Marketing $1595

On the average the company organises around 4 workshops in a month (Public)

4.2 Solutions The solutions offered by the company are more customised and integrated to deliver a more holistic

experience to the client. The modules are fully customised to client or business needs coupled with

tools for Reinforcement, Post-assessment, and Proficiency Development.

Huthwaite’s SPIN® Solution Suite Huthwaite’s SPIN® Solution Suite provides the most comprehensive and structured approach to

sales performance improvement across all the dimensions of the sales value chain and its related

functions such as marketing and product development.

Its flexible framework allows for three distinctive approaches to choose from, depending on the

needs of the client:

A comprehensive approach simultaneously deploying all components of the suite to rapidly

transform all aspects of a sales organisation.

Targeted interventions using selected components of the suite to meet identified needs.

Sequentially deploy the components of the suite to migrate a sales organisation to a

higher level of performance through a structured series of targeted interventions.

The SPIN® Solution Suite consists of:

Sales skills: Develop clients' needs, demonstrate capabilities, create competitive differentiators to

advance the sale.

Sales strategy: Increase competitive win-rate by aligning selling strategies to clients’ buying

behaviors.

Negotiations: Execute winning negotiation strategies that optimise outcomes and foster long-term

business relationships.

Prospecting: Differentiate from competitors and fill opportunity pipeline through Huthwaite’s

unique prospecting methodology.


Sales Management: Drive sales team to accelerate and achieve results by coaching how to

implement sales training skills.

Diagnostic Tools: Sales Skills Inventory and Sales Performance Analytics

Huthwaite’s Sales Skills Inventory and Sales Performance Analytics are sets of statistically-valid,

empirically-verifiable diagnostic instruments that measure the full range of skills that sellers and

their managers need in order to perform at a superior level.

Performance analysis of both the organisation as a whole and by demographics

A comparison of the organisation against industry benchmarks

A basis for curriculum development and metrics for:

Driving performance change and business results

Evaluating the effectiveness of sales training over time

Laser-focused proficiency and reinforcement strategies

SPIN® Selling: SPIN® Selling is an acronym for a questioning model that helps sellers uncover and

develop the needs of their customers.

The purpose of questions in the complex sale is to uncover Implied Needs (statements by the

customer of problems, difficulties, and dissatisfactions) and to develop them into Explicit Needs

(specific customer statements of wants or desires).

Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff--form a powerful questioning sequence that

successful people use during the all -important Investigating stage of the sales call to help in the

needs development process.

SPIN® 2.0 is for sales professionals who want to shorten their sales cycles, strengthen customer

relationships and improve their sales effectiveness

Uncover customer business problems and develop those needs they best meet

Present their offerings with high impact, avoiding “feature dumps”

Differentiate their offerings from the competition, even in a commodity environment Win business without discounting

Make credible sales calls at senior executive levels

Winning Sales StrategiesTM: Winning Sales StrategiesTM teaches participants to get to the decision-

maker, deal with competition, understand buyer psychology, and identify new business within

existing customer accounts.

BUYER FOCUSED MARKETING™: In buyer focused marketing the company will help the professional

learn:


Create customer demand, especially in new markets

Speak in a language customers understand and respond to

Discover the power of the value drivers that were uncovered by huthwaite research

Meet the customer at each phase of the buying cycle™ - with messages that move the

customer to action

Design customer-centric measures and leading indicators to track and communicate the

success of marketing efforts

Influence customer decision criteria in favor of their own solutions

Maximise timing, relevancy and persuasiveness to achieve differentiation and create

demand

Negotiating Skills WorkshopTM: is based on the most sophisticated negotiating model ever

devised. The two-day program combines a proven behavioral success model with a logical planning

process:

Use behaviors proven effective by top negotiators

Plan negotiating strategies that consider bargains, concessions, and long- and short-term

issues

Set objectives for both parties

Prioritise issues and possible trade-offs

Analyse limits and costs of concessions

Evaluate fallback positions and implications

Use tactics for persuasion and bargaining

Handle deadlock and conclude the deal

Six Characteristics of World Class Sales Coaches solution: presents the best practices of the world’s

best sales managers. Huthwaite combines the results of its research into sales performance

effectiveness and 30 years of experience working with sales organisations across industries in a

powerful training program for sales coaches that helps:

Achieve the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness

Determine the right level of management involved in face-to-face selling

Sell where there is most opportunity to create customer value

Separate transactional business from consultative business

Focus on the early stages of the business pipeline


Build a coaching culture

Reward high performers

DESPERATELY SEEKING PROSPECTS: Desperately Seeking Prospects fills an urgent need for

consultative, business-to-business sales organisations that are not getting the prospecting results

they require.

The company also offers an online e-FFECTIVENESS program, designed to test and reinforce SPIN®

Selling skills.

The program will help build

Online Reinforcement

Skill Drills

Post-Assessment

Huthwaite Dealmaker®: helps sales organisations achieve measurable improvements in sales

performance and attain greater forecasting accuracy. By integrating proven Huthwaite sales

methodology and contextual learning into day-today sales practices, organisations can finally

leverage the true benefits of their CRM investment. The dealmaker suite of the Tas group helps

combine Huthwaite’s expertise in their training programs.

Dealmaker Pulse - provides intelligent social networking for sales

Forecast Analysis - takes the subjectivity out of forecasting

Opportunity Management - utilises industry-leading methodologies from Huthwaite

Performance Coach - tracks performance of each deal through each stage for each individual on

your team


Locations: Huthwaite operates its global locations in:

United States Mexico

Canada Brazil

Australia: Mebourne, Sydney

Greater China, Singapore

Eupore Middle East

Huthwaite Europe and South Africa

The company is having around 100 employees. Information on revenue or even the number of users

they have to date is not available.

The company is one of the leading Sales Training Organisations that are increasingly turning their

services into specific modules addressing the sales professional needs in tandem with the business

as a whole.

The development of the modules include a combination of the basics, best practices,

understanding of the Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff, helping the sales

professional understand, demand, customer problems, implied needs, competition etc.

The company in partnership with dealmaker provides reinforcement, forecasting and assessment

tools for its customers.


5 Sales Performance International (SPI) Sales Performance International (SPI), is a global sales training and performance improvement firm,

that has received recognition as a leader in the sales training industry for its experience and

excellence in providing an outstanding sales methodology to clients. SPI is the exclusive worldwide

owner of the Solution Selling® Learning Library, an end-to-end training and professional

development curriculum for sales professionals, managers, and marketers.

In 2011 SPI introduced SellingStreamTM, a continual learning program that provides an unlimited

subscription to the entire library of courseware, and also provides a comprehensive array of

continual learning and reinforcement assets.

SPI has assisted more than 1 million sales and management professionals in more than 50 countries

and 14 languages achieve higher levels of performance 3.

Over 1 million sales professionals, all over the world, rely on the Solution Selling® sales process and

methodologies to differentiate themselves, not only by what they sell, but by how they engage with

customers. For more than two decades, Solution Selling® has been the definitive approach for

moving from selling products to selling and marketing high value solutions.

Solution Selling helps achieve:

Higher individual quota attainment

Higher team quota attainment

Increase in average deal size

Improved time to productivity

As Sales Process Solution Selling® not only helps with what to do, but it specifically focuses on how

to do it.

A Philosophy - The customer is the focal point. Helping customers solve their business problems and

achieve positive, measurable results to those problems is the basis of all actions.

A Map - Solution Selling® provides a map of how to get from where you are to where you want to

be.

A Methodology - Solution Selling® is a system of methods that includes tools, job aids, techniques,

and procedures.

3 An Article titled, “Sales Performance International Receives Award for Top Sales Methodology Training Companies ” by TrainingIndustry.Com, dated march 2011, at:

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110322005340/en

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110322005340/en


A Sales Management System - Solution Selling® provides sales and executive management with

a process to analyse pipelines, qualify opportunities, and coach skills.

Solution Selling® Learning Library The Solution Selling® Learning Library provides a proven, integrated curriculum for critical skills and

knowledge improvement at the individual, team, and management levels.

For Enterprise: SellingStream™ is a fundamentally new approach to sales training. SPI's new

continual learning program, SellingStream™, aligns the traditional approach of training in a course

by course method with a programatic approach to planning, executing and reinforcing learning

over time. Its foundation is built on the best practices and core methodology of Solution Selling®.

SMB: Solution Selling® for Small to Medium Business has been developed specifically to meet the

needs of smaller companies. This affordable and complete program is superior to other training

offerings typically presented to small and mid-size businesses.

Solution Selling: The Solution Selling® University is a role-based professional development platform

offering easy, anywhere, anytime access to world class Solution Selling® courses on SPI's eLearning

portal.

Tools Offered The tools offered by the company are:

Instructor-Led Training (ILT)

eLearning (eL)

Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT)

SellingStream™ is designed to deliver the highest possible return on your sales training

investment. Industry research clearly identifies the single biggest challenge in sales training –

retention and application of new methods following training events. The "Content Retention"

illustrations (below) are based on actual learning research that reveals the erosion of newly

learned methodology content when there is no formal reinforcement. As a result, most sales

training dollars do not realise the expected return on investment.

The SellingStream™ program has been designed to drive results by providing a steady stream of

continual learning and reinforcement for specific selling and management roles.

Program Planning and Configuration: the module includes Sales Process design, Solution Selling®

Sales Execution sales tools, (examples are centered on a “solution” and common selling scenario),


private, enterprise LearnCenter on SPI’s Learning Management System (LMS), and Review Findings

and Validate.

Solution Selling® Learning Library: integrated curriculum for critical skills and knowledge

improvement at the individual, team, and management levels. The solutions include foundation

and advanced course for professionals at various levels in the marketing department.

Program Reinforcement: The scheduled portion of reinforcement drives the sales team to

participate in specific learning and reinforcement activities – a necessary discipline when sales

teams leave training and go back to their busy, real world. This includes Skill Assessments, Push

Reinforcement Questions and Tips, Virtual Review Sessions,

On-Demand Reinforcement Components: They include eLearning, Topical Webcasts, Sales

Knowledge Center, Video Sales Moments, Discussion Forums, and Sales Tools and Templates,

Program Management: SPI provides one program manager to oversee the continual learning

program for the program’s duration.

Service and Technology Offerings The company provides sales training tools that provide business integration, including CRM

integration, marketing alignment, and a variety of training and coaching services.

CRM Enablement CRM and Sales Process Alignment: Aligns sales process with CRM system for improved adoption

and process adherence.

Solution Selling® Playbooks for Kadient : Integrates Solution Selling process and methodology

directly into mainstream CRM systems using Kadient’s innovative Sales Playbook technology.

Landslide CRM for Solution Selling: A complete CRM offering for small and mid-size businesses with

the Solution Selling process built in.

CRM Integration Partners: Partnerships with multiple third parties to provide native configuration

services and accelerators or integrated applications for the all mainstream CRM systems.

Management Dashboards: Out-of-the-box Solution Selling® Management Dashboards for

Salesforce.com.

Marketing Alignment Solution Messaging Workshop: This hands-on workshop helps marketers develop tactical

messaging and sales tools that directly support the Solution Selling methodology.


Sales Tool Build: Create customised Solution Selling® tools to reflect real world products and

solutions, making training more relevant and providing useful execution tools for key stages in the

sales process.

Solution Selling® Messenger: A revolutionary web-enabled methodology that simplifies and

enhances problem-solution mapping process and automatically generates a variety of solution-

centric sales conversation and enablement tools.

Training and Coaching Services Workshop Facilitation – They offer certified workshop facilitation for global training initiatives in

virtually all mainstream languages and locales. They provide both classroom facilitation for all

courseware and train-the-trainer (T3) facilitation.

Account Reviews - These reviews provide a repeatable method for assessing and validating a

business relationship, and defining a plan for maximising account potential.

Opportunity Reviews - These reviews provide a proven approach for winning complex and strategic

opportunities.

Company Founded in 1988, SPI has been the leader in helping global companies successfully transition from

selling products to marketing and selling high-value solutions.

SPI has assisted more than 1,000,000 sales and management professionals in more than 50

countries and 14 languages to achieve higher levels of performance.

The company is headquartered in US, with its offices in Canada, China, and Europe. The company

has provided training modules to over 150 large companies.

The company Industry focus is:

eCommerce, Healthcare

Manufacturing Professional

Publishing Technology

Training Approach The company is now offering public events or training workshops for the smaller work forces. The

events scheduled are at least 4 per month.

The cost of the open workshops are, Solution Speak at $1,250, and Solution Access $1,750. The

revenue estimates has been provided in the excel document attached. The company is expected to

earn over $650miliion during 2011.


The SPI international is one of the top companies in sales training that typically focuses on increase

in

Individual quota attainment

Higher team quota attainment

Increase in average deal size

Improved time to productivity

Those are typical of Strategic account management. The company provides customi sed specific

solutions depending upon the business size thereby fully customising the learning program. The

company also provides on demand tools, along with a resource library, and CRM enabled tools to

fully initiate, reinforce and assess learning tools for businesses.


6 Performancemethods.com Based in Atlanta, GA, PMI provides consulting and training services to assist clients in the design,

development and deployment of value-focused customer engagement best practices. PMI’s unique

approach provides clients with customised and integrated solutions consisting of sales processes,

best practices, supporting tools and consultative selling skills.

PMI believes that to provide the highest value to clients, an assessment of sales effectiveness and

execution must be conducted prior to deploying any new best practices, tools or conducting field

sales team training.

This collaborative assessment takes into consideration a client’s existing sales processes/tools,

sales leadership and coaching, competitive landscape, customer value requirements and the

needs for effective account team alignment.

PMI then validates findings from the sales best practices assessment

with client senior sales leadership and makes recommendations to provide for the deployment of

new skills, processes, best practices, tools and job-aides.

Customised, Client-Specific Solutions: PMI’s sales best practices solutions are based on field input

and feedback from:

Client’s salespeople and account teams

Client’s sales leadership team

Client’s customers

Client’s go-to-market partners

They provide a customer value tool.

Co-Creating Value With Your Most Strategic Customers: The process is represented in a

customer/supplier collaboration presentation in Web 3D/Second Life technology.

Seeing Through The Customer’s Eyes: Account relationship assessment tools,

Creating customer Value: Sales Best Practices Solutions

PMI creates worldwide client value and coverage through its global partnership with Mercuri

International, the world's largest sales training and development

Consultancy, and is an active participant and sponsor in the Strategic Account Management

Association (SAMA), the world’s largest non-profit community of sales best practices.


Global Presence The company has leveraged its global presence with the help of Mercuri International. Performance

Methods, Inc. and Mercuri international announced a global partnership designed to leverage the

strengths of each firm to create value on a worldwide level for their mutual clients.

Mercuri serves these markets with sales training and consulting offerings in 14 languages and runs in

excess of 18,000 events attended by over 330,000 participants each year. Mercuri’s broad global

client base includes over 15,000 organisations, many of whom have been in partnership with

Mercuri for over 10 years.

PMI does not appear to be offering one 2 or three day workshops for individuals. The company has

15 key team members for the organisation.

I have included PMI in the discussion since the process adopted by them reflects all the processes

involved in Strategic account management. Where the company:

Evaluates clients existing tools and services

Evaluates the customers implied requirements

Evaluates the competitive landscape to

Create more value with most strategic customers followed by customer relationship assessment

and reinforcement tools, creating customer value with sales best practices. Though the company

has primarily focused on the North American Market, Its partnership with Mercuri has led to its

expanded global presence.

7 Revenue Storm Revenue storm is another company in this direction. Revenue Storm is the premier revenue

performance consultancy proven to help Fortune 1000 firms to help their suppliers increase

profitable, sustainable revenues by 10% to over 100%—enterprise-wide.

Revenue Storm was founded in 2000 to bring fresh thinking and best-in-class methodologies to help

business-to-business sales organisations accelerate revenue growth. The firm is headquartered in

Chicago supporting clients in 33 countries and nine languages. Our Europe office is located in

London.

Revenue Storm is committed to helping each salesperson, manager and organisation to be the best

revenue producer they can be.


The company helps evaluate optimum sales or “Go-to-Market” Strategy—from a price-based

transactional focus up to joint market partner.

Based on proven analytical tools, they benchmark the capabilities and performance of sales

organisation and its people as they compare to the optimum strategy.

They work with executive management—including sales management, marketing, human

resources, information technology and legal executives—to understand, align with and lead the

transformation to accelerate revenue.

They combine training with targeted coaching and ongoing electronic and paper-based tools to

enable effective talent management and generate lasting, real-world, top-line performance.

Measuring Success Executive Alignment: Revenue Storm works directly with executive management in one-on-one and

group sessions to align the enterprise around revenue acceleration. Revenue Strategy Alignment™,

Marketing Alignment, Shadow Management™,

Improved Training and Talent Management

One-on-one or with small groups of managers or sales executives to deliver sales on live pursuits ,

they coach over 320 sales pursuits per year, totaling over $11 billion. Their process includes the

principles of strategic account management, with a key differentiation and focus on revenue.

Setting the Strategic Foundation

Their coaching programs for executives (Revenue Strategy Alignment), sales managers (Managing to

Revenue) and account executives (Coaching to Revenue) set the foundation for the entire

organisation to translate strategy into action.

Improving Management Performance

They coach the executive team on driving the sales strategy (Shadow Management), help managers

guide sales talent to reach its potential (Talent Management) and improve the ability of individual

managers or sales executives to use their strengths and win business (Coaching to Competencies).

Advancing Sales Pursuits

Sales pursuit and major account penetration coaching drives key deals.

Sales Talent Predictor (STP) is a state-of-the-art psychometric tool and measurement service

designed to help hire, train and coach high performance salespeople. The STP benchmarks 27

specific competencies, such as negotiation, against the optimum sales strategy. With this data, the

user can differentiate and predict performance for different groups of employees with a high degree

of statistical significance, validity and consistency.


Interactive Tools Map Your Revenue Growth – A six-module interactive experience helps assess current versus

optimum Go-to-Market Strategy, and identify immediate actions to accelerate revenue.

(Assessment)

Calculate Revenue Leakage - Quickly assess revenue losses—and potential revenue acceleration.

(Identify)

Assess Organisational Alignment for Revenue Growth - Identify how poor organisational alignment

is robbing you of revenue performance. (Internal Alignment)

Estimate Return-on-Investment for Sales Talent Prediction - See how accurately predicting sales

talent can deliver improved revenue performance. (Forecast)

The company focus is on improvement of Revenue that is the key for any business selling products

and services. The key process adopted is “Sales pursuit and major account penetration coaching

drives key deals” along with problem identification, assessment, training, reinforcement and

forecast.

http://www.revenuestorm.com/company/faq.php#09