Semiconductor Equipment Firm Earns a 35:1 Return on Investment from Counselor Salesperson

Impact Evaluation

Performance Issue

A semiconductor equipment firm sought to implement a change in sales strategy that would:

• Evolve from a product driven, tactical approach to a solution driven, consultative approach.
• Include one selling approach (rather than many) to be used consistently by the sales force.

Within a tough competitive business environment and sluggish economy, this firm also needed expected Account Managers to:

• Implement skills learned and tools provided in training.
• Apply the training, support, and reinforcement to win new business

Performance Solution

Over 50 individuals across three geographic regions participated in a custom version of Counselor Salesperson (CSP).

CSP builds skills and provides tools to create and manage a consultative relationship with a business customer. The program introduces selling as a definable and manageable consultative process in which the focus is on developing the relationship and discovering the customer’s needs. CSP represented a significant investment for this semiconductor firm, and showing evidence of the payoff in a simple yet credible way was critical.

Measurement Process

In order to assess the impact of CSP, this semiconductor firm measured behavioral indicators and business metrics. They:

• Monitored the use of CSP skills and tools through discussion of their use as an ongoing topic in internal sales meetings. Documentation of the use of CSP skills/tools was included in meeting minutes.
• Reviewed CSP-related documentation (e.g., Sales Call Planners, Discovery Agreements) submitted by Account Managers.
• Internally interviewed Account Managers using a structured protocol shortly after they won new business. In this interview, Account Managers attributed a percentage of credit for the win that they believed was solely due to CSP skills, versus skills that they had before the program, support from other areas of the organization, the product itself, and other factors they named.

Results and Conclusion

• Account Managers provided documented use of CSP skills and tools to plan and execute meetings, conference calls, presentations, win/loss reviews and project overviews.
• Account Managers discussed many examples where using a consultative sales process consistently allowed them to focus on customer needs and to move the sales process along.
• In less than one year, Account Managers have attributed a total of $1.9 million in sales to CSP. The firm’s total investment in CSP was $53,000, which yields, in this firm’s own estimation, an ROI of 35:1.

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