CASE STUDY 17
CONSUMER GOODS, BEAUTY
Our client is an Australian owned skin care company. They are a family-run business that grows plants and manufactures them into natural skin care products for sales direct to business and consumers. They are a pioneer in creating natural plant-based skin care products.
The company had a well-recognised product but were struggling to scale their business. They lacked some top-level expertise in their leadership team. The current sales leader was a family appointment promoted into a leadership role and whilst they were the best sales representative, they lacked sales leadership expertise.
Product sales were direct to businesses through primary channels of independent pharmacies and health care stores. Our client had little penetration into major retailers, who hold majority market share of retail sales in this category. They struggled to sell direct to customers.
The business had a substantial sales team. However, the team were under-utilised and without clear expectations of KPIs or monitoring of sales performance. The newly appointed sales leader needed to build sales leadership capabilities and knowledge of sales skills, team behaviours and sales processes.
The owner of the business engaged a Sales Director on a part-time basis to support the internal Sales Leader and build an effective sales strategy. In addition, as the businesses had focused on a small part of the market an opportunity for the sales specialists was to undertake a complete business review to identify markets and growth opportunities.
In the first instance, the business engaged a Sales Director on a part-time basis over 12-months. Key priorities included analysis of resources and of channel strategies. Individual assessment of sales team capabilities included review of client sales visits and calls through to a reset of individual KPIs. Channel strategy assessment included a review of client segments and geographic markets.
The Sales Director mentored the Sales Leader through this process, providing role-modelling and illustrative leadership. Finally, the Sales Director facilitated development of a baseline sales strategy by the Sales Leader, which provided a 12-month plan to align sales strategies and plans with business objectives.
One year later, a Chief Strategy Officer was engaged to lead a strategic Discovery Roadmap. A complete business review was undertaken to determine the key strategic imperatives to deliver sustainable revenue growth for the business. There was a lot to decipher, as the business had grown substantially since the Sales Director had started with the business.
The Roadmap identified new market opportunities, which included developing strategies to widen the client base by selling to major retailers and direct to consumers. In addition, a process was developed for expansion into international markets. The objective of the Discovery Roadmap was to define the strategy for the business to achieve category leadership in independent retail.
A Marketing Director was engaged by the business to implement the Roadmap.
The Roadmap delivered a robust 2-year plan currently being implemented. One year after implementation commenced, most goals and objectives have been achieved, which illustrates the incredible development of the Sales Leader and sales team to a high-performance team. The business is now:
Engagement continues with sales and marketing specialists to deliver further growth.
