Company: Lennox Industries, Inc., Richardson, TX
Company Description: The residential business unit of Lennox Industries, the largest business unit within Lennox International Inc. (NYSE: LII), is responsible for $1.5B of the $3.1B in sales within the LII portfolio. Led by record growth and performance by Lennox Industries, our stock price has increased another 10% from $86 to $94 per share since July 2013.
Nomination Category: Business Development Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Business Development Achievement of the Year - All Other Industries

Nomination Title: Lennox Industries Business Development Achievement of the Year

Tell the story about this organization's business development achievements since the beginning of July 2013 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Lennox Business Development Achievements in 2014

The acquisition and conversion of new customers was critical to the success of the Lennox residential business in 2014. The Business Development team worked with all other functional areas of the business to produce outstanding results by:

1. Exploiting our direct distribution advantage – our competitors do not sell directly to dealers
2. Generating more opportunities/leads for the sales team
3. Maintaining a disciplined sales process to identify and qualify prospects
4. Improving the conversion process

The results for 2014 are as follows:

• $99,000,000 new customer net growth
• 116.5% to the new customer growth plan
• $268,000,000 in new customer sales dollars

The residential team achieved superior new customer results by exploiting our direct to dealer advantage to attract and acquire new customers. Unlike our competitors, we sell directly to our dealers through our own distribution centers and Lennox PartsPlus (LPP) stores. Having a fresh product line, increased distribution through LPP and stellar availability throughout the year enhanced the team’s ability to win business from competitors. Our Territory Managers were able to sell with confidence and continuously deliver on commitments throughout even the busy season.

Business Development continues to focus on following and improving the New Customer sales process that has led to current and previous year’s success by the residential sales team. One of the primary functions of the team is delivering quality leads and prospecting assistance via a new mapping tool to the field sales team. These leads are generated through Strategic Partnerships, targeted Market strikes across North America, enlisting a professional B2B outbound appointment setting partner to penetrate hard to reach prospects. All these actions, in addition to traditional prospecting, keep the top of our sales opportunity funnel healthy. In 2014 these activities combined accounted for 3,660 potential opportunities valued at over $1B. When you combine these prospecting results with new customer focused factory (Marshalltown, Iowa) and headquarter (Richardson, TX) tours and 3-day new customer specific sales training, our results of signing $155,000,000 in new customer proposals plays a big role in our market share gains in 2014.

At the end of 2013 the team recognized that our new customer sales process could be improved. After a diligent review two new modules were developed and added to improve the effectiveness of the process. A detailed account planning module and a conversion module were added to the opportunity management too. The account planning module improved the team’s ability to identify and quantify the real opportunity. This gave the team the information to prioritize the opportunity and apply the appropriate resources to increase our probability for success. The new conversion process outlined the steps to conversion, timeline and assignment of tasks to be completed by the field sales and support teams. The new modules were developed and launched in our opportunity management tool Salesforce.com.

The residential sales team posted stellar new customer results in 2014. This performance was the result of solid planning, process improvement and sales execution. It was also the result of a lot of hard work by all the functional areas that support the residential sales team. The new customers were entertained, educated and trained by Lennox employees in Marshalltown, Richardson and Regional Distribution Centers across North America. The professionalism and pride our team puts into presenting our company, products, programs and brand assure the prospects that Lennox is the right partner for their business.

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