Sales Training Success: CustomerCentric Selling® helps AgraQuest more accurately forecast and close more deals.

Business Problem
AgraQuest first started evaluating CustomerCentric Selling® after receiving a promotional email describing the challenges CFOs face in today's economical climate. "What resonated in this message was the similarity of challenges we were facing," shared Don Glidewell, AgraQuest CFO at that time.

The primary goals of the executive team, as described by Pam Marrone, CEO at the time, were to improve revenue performance and predictability in pipeline and forecast. The challenges they faced were:

• Sales churn had created a morale and sales performance challenge
• The bottom up forecast was unreliable and inaccurate, resulting in the Board of Directors questioning the effectiveness of the operations
• No pipeline grading system to more effectively manage the sales executives

The CustomerCentric Selling® Solution
With CustomerCentric Selling®, Pam Marrone and the executive team were looking for:

• A company-wide auditable and repeatable sales process to more effectively manage the sales force
• Transforming feature function product presentations into sales messages, presenting how
• AgraQuest products can be used by the farmers/growers to address their pest management goals
• Sharing of best practices to propagate best sales behaviors
• Creating qualified leads through more effective prospecting and qualification

CustomerCentric Selling® provided AgraQuest with these capabilities.

After conducting a customized CustomerCentric Selling® Workshop with their entire worldwide sales force, Philippe Lavie, a CustomerCentric Selling® Business Partner and president of KeyRoad Enterprises, worked with the executive team and the sales force to assist in the implementation of the newly learned skills.

 

When asked to comment on the performance and level of satisfaction toward the services rendered, CEO Marrone says, "CustomerCentric Selling® and Philippe Lavie have provided the tools we needed to upgrade our sales processes and assess the performance of our existing sales force."

"CustomerCentric Selling® (CCS) and Philippe Lavie have allowed me to have visibility on the sales revenue pipeline that I never had before. Prior to working with Philippe and CCS, I would get to the end of a month or quarter and wonder if the projected sales revenue was going to materialize. Now, I have the ability to look at the pipeline and the salesmen's efforts to date in developing that pipeline and better judge for myself where we will close against plan. I can talk intelligently with the sales guys about the possibility of closing this deal or that deal. Revenue forecasting will always be a combination of art and science, but now I have a great tool to reduce the variability."

--Don Glidewell, CFO for AgraQuest

More information on AgraQuest can be found at www.agraquest.com

For any questions about this client, please contact Philippe Lavie at plavie@customercentric.com

Benefits to AgraQuest:

• Significant increase in qualified sales leads in the pipeline
• Confidence in pipeline forecasting improved and increased in accuracy by 75%
• Directly related revenue attributed to the CCS implementation equaled to $500,000