Newcastle-based Activ Technology has partnered with sales performance consultancy, Stormcast, as it looks to treble its sales force in 2020.
In particular, Michael Fulthorpe, director at Stormcast Sales Consulting, is working closely with sales manager at Activ Technology, Dean Cowens, to support his personal growth.
Activ Technology has developed the careers of many of its workforce, some of whom have been with the company for many years. Having stepped up to head of sales in 2018, Dean is benefitting from external sales techniques to build his team and his own personal progression using the Storm CAST selling methodology.
Dean, said: “Working in sales and building a team of dedicated sales professionals takes a great deal of time. People are at the heart of our business, you have to invest in them both personally and professionally and that is the culture managing director, Ian Gillespie, has created.
“I am working with Michael two days a week over a six month period and he is using a range of coaching and behavioural processes in conjunction with our sales methodology to assess what makes me tick and improve our sales performance.
“It is really interesting to gain an external perspective and to understand my strengths and weaknesses. This includes identifying ways to best manage my time whilst developing my team, especially as we are looking to treble its size in 2020. The CAST selling methodology is perfect for scaling a technology business like Activ. It has helped to get the clarity on the real sales opportunities that we can win and to prioritise where we invest time and resource.
“Recruiting the right people to a sales team and the journey that goes with it, can be difficult. It takes time and commitment to invest in a team and working within sales you need to be resilient, driven and also take the time to grow. However, this will only happen if there is a mutually beneficial offering. Young people will not stay if they do not see a progression path but equally they have to work hard and cannot expect to just jump the career ladder.
“My ambition is to treble the sales team going forward but it is crucial that I am able to identify key areas for growth and to ensure sales efficiency and effectiveness by working together as a team.”
Michael, said: “Having enjoyed a successful career in sales, including sales director at Sage, and as an independent sales consultant, I established Stormcast just over two years ago with the aim of building high performance sales teams, based around our core, proven sales processes, methodologies and approaches.
“Using our CAST selling opportunity development tool, I guide sales professionals through a simple, proven approach to qualifying and developing sales opportunities. By working closely with Dean we are not only able to apply our sales skillset and toolset more effectively across the team, but understand his mind-set and support him in growing his team.
“I have also worked with Activ Technology to deliver workshops and the success has been measured by using a number of metrics including forecasting accuracy, win rate and sales cycle time. The results proved that after delivering a CAST selling workshop the team increased its sales by 20%.
“Dean is benefitting from a structured way to assess opportunities and prioritise key areas of growth.”