Sales in the construction sector faces numerous challenges: constant price pressure, low trust, high risk in building projects, and the large number of influencers on each buying centre. Facing them are usually salespeople who are barely digitalised, with many internal processes still carried out largely by hand. Our client faced the challenge that the rising number of influencers and competitive pressure were leading to stagnation. Satisfaction within the sales team — especially among younger members — was steadily declining, and more and more customers were choosing the competition.
In collaboration with CustomersX®, a Sales Excellence assessment was carried out. It identified the key weaknesses and potential in order to increase growth and profit in a focused way. In the subsequent project, we jointly built a solid customer-data foundation, digitalised the staff, trained them in the latest sales approaches, and automated numerous internal processes. As a result, sales efficiency increased significantly. Impact also grew, especially with A and B customers, thanks to better data and a modern sales methodology. Profit and growth picked up again, and the sales team was noticeably relieved of pressure.
Customer Value-based Decision Making
Customer-centric Transformation
Co-Creation
Customer Management
In many companies, sales is changed only very rarely. This is especially true of sales in the construction sector. Many routines settle in over the years, existing competencies become entrenched, and it's easy to get the impression that everything is going to plan. Yet precisely in sectors like construction — affected by many changes and marked by very tough competition — such a mindset quickly leads to major dangers. Sales systems that aren't changed for years can usually only be changed with very great effort. This creates a major risk for the company and a high potential for frustration among employees. Our client, too, had made no changes or training in sales for years. When profit and growth stagnated, they tried to counter this with cost savings and more pressure — but success failed to materialise. The realisation grew that the sales system needed to be adapted systematically to the new reality, and changed more continuously in future.
Based on our DTC approach, we developed a project approach to establish Sales Excellence as a management competency within the company. Two goals were pursued: (1) to adapt the existing sales system to changes in the market and among customers, and (2) to enable the company to carry out the necessary future changes independently.
As a first step
using our Sales Excellence approach, the strengths and weaknesses of the existing sales system were determined. For this, an internal survey of employees and an external survey of customers were conducted. This made it possible to identify the key value drivers and develop a focused improvement approach. We recommend using Sales Excellence in practice because, in sales especially, the lack of systematic development means there are many 'building sites.' This makes it easy for those in charge to spread themselves too thin. Sales Excellence enables a deeper understanding and, building on that, a clear focus.
As a second step
a sales strategy was developed. Until then, sales had been steered via revenue targets; there was no systematic sales strategy with clear development goals for the individual areas. The new sales strategy focused on expanding the use of customer data. A roadmap was also created for digitalising the staff and automating internal processes. For this, different software applications were evaluated and their added value for the company determined.
As a third step
several activities were carried out. Our IT team connected the various systems so that salespeople could capture customer data more easily and use it in their daily work. A marketing automation with basic CRM functions was also introduced. Both steps meant salespeople could go to customer visits with a tablet, using it both to capture customer data and to support the sales conversation. A customer-value model was also developed and customer care systematised. Based on an ABCD segmentation, clear guidelines were developed for contact channel, intensity and time budget. Finally, the salespeople were trained to apply the latest insights from solution and insight selling. The combination of a relevant data foundation and modern sales techniques, with a strong focus on efficiency, led to success immediately.
As a final step
after four months, the data system was expanded and the automations developed further. The focus was on consolidating the sales team's selling skills. To this end, over two training days, the team's implementation of the sales approaches was reviewed and their competencies strengthened.
In summary
sales optimisation offers enormous potential. Sales in the construction sector in particular faces numerous challenges. Without relevant data on the buying centre and the many stakeholders, without digitalising the sales team, and without applying modern sales approaches, impact quickly falls by the wayside. The individual elements have to be combined systematically and deliberately in the spirit of Sales Excellence. Ultimately, the goal is to be just one step better than the competition.
*We take confidentiality towards our clients seriously. The name has been changed; the results are real.
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