Sales Partnerships, Inc. - Sales Recruitment Initiative of the Year
Company: Sales Partnerships, Inc., Broomfield, CO
Company Description: Sales Partnerships, Inc. is the premier direct sales outsourcing company in the world, offering branded representation that delivers rapid revenue lift for the most influential B2B firms in the world. Whether it's brand activation, customer acquisition, or retention, SPI is the leader in providing scalable and proven solutions to the Fortune 500.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Recruitment Initiative of the Year
Nomination Title: SPRecruit - faster recruiting and higher success
Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, explaining the nominated achievement since July 1, 2018, OR a written essay of up to 650 words describing the same? (Choose one): An essay/case study of up to 650 words
Sales Partnerships’ nomination this year is about successfully building what is likely the largest nationwide field sales program in more than a generation. During this program we worked more than 3,000,000 unique brick and mortar businesses in the US in every significantly populated area face to face – activating more than a million of them. Although large sales forces exist regionally – doing this kind of work on this scale with a W2 direct sales force is something not attempted since deregulation of telecommunications during the 1980’s. 2019 marked completion of the acquisition and activation program referenced (transitioning into an innovative account management from for 2020 and beyond.)
Who are we?
Sales Partnerships provides comprehensive turnkey field-based outsourced sales services for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies nationwide. We hire, train, and manage the teams (all as Sales Partnerships’ W-2 employees) and execute sales under the brand of the client represented. Clients work with us because of our ability to solve complex sales problems and successfully launch programs at large scale in short periods of time. We do this by leveraging industry expertise along with unique/proprietary solutions and technology.
The Challenge
Our client allowed the major banks and merchant processing to resell their product - giving those sales forces near complete control over presentation, margins, terms, etc. A gold rush began with this announcement being one of the most significant changes in merchant processing in the past 20 years. Every major processor started promoting our client’s product acceptance but done in a way that promoted rapid sales and little depth of value being promoted. The result was a huge rush of sign-ups with high churn and low activation.
Historically, our client had fielded their own face to face sales force where every SMB customer would get a detailed presentation explaining the value story they brought. This had often been replaced with “sign here and we’ll match company X’s rates.” The true sales work of convincing the merchants of why our client’s services were valuable and why their cardholders were the most appealing demographics of all credit card holders still had to be done. Because the change meant a reduction in margin on each customer in exchange for more customers Wall Street wanted immediate results.
The Solution
This nomination focuses on the recruiting challenge of a sales program in more than 200 simultaneous markets (with ones being completed, shutting down, and new ones replacing them). We had to recruit virtually everywhere in the US with talented reps and ensure immediate success. Recruiting failures would threaten meeting objectives promised to Wall Street.
The SPRecruit system was deployed to help us successfully recruit thousands of professional sales representatives in every significant US market. The attached case study details how we use metric based interviewing to quantify sales candidates then constantly improve each subsequent hire. 2019's initiative marked our 20th generation of this process (the third using Machine Learning). The program required more than 1,000 great representatives to hit the necessary target.
The Results
SPI met the recruiting targets allowing us to hit goal late in 2019. Turnover for 2019 was 17% lower than 2018 and less than a quarter of the average for our industry. The team hired included more individuals selected into the management development track (6%) and successfully becoming managers in their first year than we've had in any other year.
Customer satisfaction rates earning a JD Powers Award with complaints being the less than ¼ of 1% of the industry standard) showed that we both met the numbers but also did it the SPI way - ethically and on-target.
“Sales Partnerships makes the near-impossible look routine. We trusted them with the most important initiative we’ve had in recent years. Our program was being watched from the C Suite and (Wall) Street - they excelled under that spotlight. We definitely recommend them.” - Client Liaison