Lean Sales Strategies — Summer 2022

Define the terms

Sales Contests

Types of compensation Plan:

Positional Negotiations

Root cause and countermeasures

Value Streaming Mapping is a similar concept with a different perspective. Discuss in context with VSM principles and its mission.

Design and discuss Customer profile of your business.

Discuss various motivation tools for sales. Which tool do you find most suitable for your business?

How does time pressure impact negotiation and can it be used to our advantage? Discuss in the context of the Persuasion Tools Model.

What is the difference between Kaizen and Lean?

To analyses the changing role and requirements of sales lean sales process play an important role. Discuss.

There are typical stages of a lean transformation. Discuss

Amajor US insurer, wanted to reach out to their network of independent sales agents to help them shape and refine the sales content they use to sell their policies. Located all over the US, they wanted to collaborate and learn more about the challenges they face at the same time. By working proactively with key stakeholders, they were able to demonstrate their commitment to them and learn a great deal about the markets they operate in, uncovering local insight as well as more global themes. Unusually, the client took control of moderating the research project and, in doing so, developed a valuable first-hand communication channel between the business and its sales agents. How to present these documents in a way that was easy to use and even easier to get feedback on? Their client wanted to test drive and get feedback on a range of new sales collateral. In addition, they wanted to know how they could better support their busy agents in the field and improve the overall relationship they held with them. The research centred on a review of seven pieces of sales collateral, ranging from Page 1 of general customer information – relating to the brand and its offer, to complex policy guides for the agents. Each piece was unique, varied in length and required careful and very detailed scrutiny from participants. Great insight is forged from carefully crafted research. The Further team designed an online research community methodology with activities that would generate a high level of engagement among the 59 participating agents. Using Together™ research community platform, they assigned a series of structured activities that allowed participants to express themselves and collaborate openly, and provide feedback and answers for others to comment on. The research community method removed the geographical barriers to participation, and the open nature of the tasks allowed them to share thoughts and connect with colleagues across the country. The research community became a safe and secure destination, a place to discuss thoughts and learn from others, rather than a chore to be completed. To sweeten the deal, participants were incentivised for their time and 80% of the agents finished all the tasks set over the course of the week. Client-side Senior Research Manager, David Teal, took charge of moderating the community. After training, he was able to apply his knowledge of the insurance market while probing, quizzing and connecting directly with the agents. He drew a raft of praise directly from important stakeholders that will play a key role in future business strategy. His close collaboration with the Further team, and the community, meant he could monitor and shape the project as it developed, contributing with confidence to the overall insight process. “Our team has worked with Further before so Ifelt this project would be great for them and their platform. Being able to moderate the discussions directly helped me better understand our agents’ challenges, provided valuable insight, and gave us what we needed to sharpen our collateral now and in the future. I’m not sure how the project could have gone any better." - Dave Teal, Senior Research Manager Following a quick debrief between the client and Further, the research team made short work of analysing the largely unstructured data. By cutting responses by sentiment, it was easy to sort positive and negative feedback and potential improvements for each piece of content and to make recommendations on appearance, content and effective implementation. Agents loved the ease with which they could view the collateral online, express their thoughts and communicate with their peers, swapping experiences and potential usages. They valued being included in the process and consistently delivered detailed and personable insights. This allowed the client to move forward and develop the collateral, confident that their next steps were guided by the needs and values of the individuals who would be using it to engage their customers.