2016 saw the launch of a bespoke field sales training programme and its initial rollout was successfully completed in November. The business made the training compulsory for all its full-time outsourced staff on contract to the following clients: Diageo; Procter & Gamble; United Biscuits; British American Tobacco; KP; and LucozadeRibenaSuntory. In total, we trained 70 field sales staff, 10 regional managers and 18 internal managers through 8 training modules, delivering a total of 66 tailored training days over the 12 month period.

The sales training focused on the idea that we are not selling client products in to the retailer but rather assisting the retailer on selling the product out. If we could adopt a collaborative approach to selling there would be a paradigm shift in the relationships our field sales teams had with their retailers. Hence the concept was born of “Selling in was out and selling out was in”.

Despite only recently completing the programme, the results have been extremely promising and feedback from line managers and the sales team has been extremely positive. More importantly, the learnings are being translated into wins in the field delivering tangible results to our clients.