Senior Business Development and ROI Performance Executive, Wilbur Williams, was hired as the CEO by the owner of medical call center company to change the direction of the firm. The company had been in business for 26 years, was on track to hit five million in revenue in the year Williams was hired, and the owner wanted to find a way to hit twenty million in revenue in ten years.
The corporate culture was one of feeling as if things were going well, and no changes needed to be made. They were indeed growing slightly each year. This was a family-owned business, and many family members and their friends were long term employees. “Although each department would need to be addressed, I felt the first focus was on the sales group,” Williams said.
He was informed before even having any discussions that all of them had been doing this a long time, they had tried everything, and “any idea I might even consider had already been done.” It was made clear that “even though the owner had all these big ideas, they were not achievable, and his presence was not necessary”. The prevailing culture was that things were going as well as they could be.
“I approached the problem by engaging each person in sales individually at some length. I asked them about the deals they lost, as well as the deals they won and what would have turned their losses into wins. Each person was asked not whether they thought the 20 million revenue goal was achievable, but HOW they would achieve it. Engaging the staff members one-on-one not only produced different insights, it allowed us to begin the process of making each person feel as though they were part of a solution.”
As a result of the individual sessions, the sales compensation was completely re-structured to make larger sales pay a larger percentage of commissions, to make the salespeople responsible for their portfolio of accounts as opposed to never touching an account post sale, rewarding customer retention and training in the methods of selling to large, enterprise accounts. Coupled with this was a push to create new products needed to win those that had been lost in the past.
In short order, salespeople were dramatically expanding revenue in existing customers and creating massive amounts of customer referrals. Paid advertising was cut in half, yet sales increased, culminating with new leads coming from existing customer growth or referral making up the lead source of 67% of all new revenue. Finally, this change with sales was linked to having every person in the company know explicitly what the goals were, what the plans were to achieve them, and how every group was part of that effort.
As a result of the efforts with completely changing the sales and accompanying customer service methods, revenue growth that had been averaging approximately $400,000 per year grew to $2,000,000 per year, and the $20 million revenue goal was hit one year earlier than the business owner requested.
This change “utilized my ability to disrupt the status quo without tearing the organization apart. While making massive changes I achieved buy in from all levels, forging the future team that shed its silos of responsibility”. The ability to disrupt the processes and trajectory without disrupting the business and people is a balance shown here.
Watch full video interview below.
Contact Wilbur Williams via LinkedIn or his Career WebFolio.
Fred Coon, CEO
ViewPoint© is a production of The US AT Work Network© and Stewart, Cooper & Coon, a Human Capital Strategies Corporation. Contact: Fred Coon – 866-883-4200, Ext. 200, for more information.
© 2004-2021 Stewart, Cooper, & Coon, Inc. All rights reserved. Limited to personal use and allowable only if this copyright message is left intact. Any duplication, alteration, or publishing of this content without express company permission is prohibited. Contact fcoon@stewartcoopercoon.com.