Real Estate firm, Shelter Estate, is in the business of providing plots of land in Abuja city to willing subscribers who intend to build their own house in the city of Abuja. The company helps its clients navigate the hurdles of Development Control regulations and solve compliance, quality, engineering, and technology challenges.
Echoing a challenge familiar to many Real Estate firms in Nigeria and even Africa. The President and General Manager, Dr. Philip says, “We’re always busy serving our current clients and find very little time to look for new ones and prospect for new opportunities.”
Shelter relied on a small sales force of agents to identify and secure new business. The typical six-to-12 month sales cycle required a sustained outbound sales process on behalf of the team. The highly regulated nature of the business, with its legal ramifications behind complying with Development Control regulations, made for a complex sale and a relationship-driven business.
To meet its new business development and growth goals, the company needed to strengthen its marketing and sales process.
Solution
When Philip and his team sought a firm to help them improve their marketing and sales results as well as the process, they turned to Rocketsales With You.
Find a Sales Support Partner That Understands Your Business
Shelter Estate was especially attracted by the Rocketsales’s strength in the professional services sector. “A lot of other [sales support] companies tend to be generalists. But we found out that Rocketsales’s knowledge of professional services like ours makes them very effective at understanding our needs and then helping us in a more focused way,” says Philip.
Create a Shared Marketing and Sales Process
Shelter Estate found they had greater success when the sales team was staffed by knowledgeable industry sales experts, as opposed to traditional salespeople. What they needed in order to boost success was a strong, shared marketing and sales process – one that would engage both the sales team and the management team.
The company decided to adopt the Rocketsales SellingSM methodology to drive their sales process. To begin, Rockesales’s Rainmaker Assessment provided insight into the strengths and capabilities of the existing sales team and its processes. These results helped pinpoint the areas that needed improvement so the support program could be tailored to this team’s specific needs.
Deliver Custom Training to Sales and Management Teams
A two-day in-person Rocketsales Selling training session was held that used action-learning – including role-plays and case studies – to develop sales skills and knowledge. The program was customized based on the results of the Rainmaker Assessment and extensive interviews with leaders and participants. For example, one element of the training focused on helping the team to skillfully ask questions to understand what was of value to the prospect. Once they understood that, they would be able to articulate the impact of the company’s solution.
“We went through it as an entire group including our management team,” reports Philip, “everybody was very positive about the experience and felt like they gained some very good insight into how to sell in terms of more effectively selling a value proposition.”
Extend the Learning to Improve Results
Following the in-person training, a series of monthly lunchtime reinforcement training was held. These sessions, which focused on specific topics such as Leading Rainmaking Conversations, Overcoming Objections, and Nurturing Long Term Leads, gave participants a chance to share and gain feedback on their experiences using the techniques and approaches they had been introduced to during the training. Philip says, “These lunch sessions were a good way for us to reinforce the training.”
Results
As a result of the training program and supports, Shelter Estate met their objectives and increased the number of subscribers on its list of clients. Within 6 months, the company increased the number of active subscribers by over 500% and significantly increased their penetration of existing clients, with a corresponding increase in revenue.
Moreover, the company’s sales force and management team now have greater clarity around its sales process. “Because we changed our internal sales process to match the Rocketsales Selling methodology,” says Philip, “we have the added benefit of all speaking the same language and understanding what we need to do as we bring an opportunity through the selling process.”
Highlights
Client: Shelter Estate
Industry: Real Estate
Services: Marketing & Sales Performance, Improvement Assessment, Marketing & Sales Training & Support With Major Focus On The Use of Social Media Marketing
