Acclivus Update
2005 Second Quarter

MISSION FOODS DEVELOPS CONSISTENCY FROM COAST-TO-COAST

R³ transACTION™ is designed to help you maximize the action and ensure the success of your sales team.

The consumer products and grocery industry is intensely competitive as various manufacturers of similar products compete for space on crowded supermarket shelves. If a supplier does not meet the grocer's needs, the store can easily find one of the supplier's many competitors who will.

Consistently meeting customer needs, though, takes responsive selling skills and a proactive approach in probing for the customer's unique requirements.

That is why Mission Foods, the nation's leading supplier of tortillas, tortilla chips and related products such as chip dips to the nation's largest supermarket chains, sought out a training program to build effective selling skills among its front-line district sales managers. Although a rapidly growing, $1 billion direct store delivery company, Mission Foods had never focused strongly on formal sales training.

Each district sales manager's approach was different, and their effectiveness varied sharply.

Mission wanted “consistency in process across the organization” so its sales force could deliver a steady message to its many national accounts, said Debra Martin, Director of Organizational Development and Training.

The company selected Acclivus’ new R³ transACTION™ program, which provides the skills, techniques, and approaches required for managing customer transactions and strengthening customer relationships. The program is ideal for professionals who interact with customers in a fast-paced, high-volume, low-margin environment. By taking the consultative approach taught in R³ transACTION™, district sales managers can close the sale while protecting margins and concurrently strengthening the customer relationship. “It made sense because of our need for effective selling skills and relationship building techniques,” said Mike Crane, Mission Food's vice president of sales.

Debra Martin, Director of Organizational Development and Training,
and Mike Crane, Vice President of Sales, with Mission Foods

Over several months, more than 100 of Mission Food’s district sales managers participated in the two-day program, with courses held across the country. They then took part in an intense 40-day Follow-Through program that helped the participants cement the skills they learned and apply them on a daily basis.

Crane said benefits from the training were quickly apparent. The district sales managers “learned basic selling skills, from organizing our day to organizing our presentation.” They became skilled at opening customer meetings, probing for needs, quickly qualifying opportunities, making product recommendations, managing concerns, building relationships, and “most importantly, knowing when to close the sale,” Crane noted.

Martin said the R³ transACTION™ course proved key to “connecting the dots with the district sales managers between a formal process sales model, and the way they had been doing things.” While Mission Food's rapid growth shows the district sales managers “were doing a lot right already,” the training “provided a framework for them to work within and add to their existing competencies. We've seen significant evidence that the training is filling our need.”

District Sales Manager Tim Taillon, who skillfully turned a “no” into an opportunity to introduce Mission tortillas into a large store, exemplifies the new approach.

Taillon quickly established customer rapport, qualified the opportunity, answered objections, offered two alternative proposals and after gaining customer agreement for him to set up a display, was asked to display Mission burritos and taco shells also.

“Even if we only get our chips in, it sure feels good going into a call more confident and organized,” he said.

Like Taillon, Area Sales Manager Richard Schuh remarked that R³ transACTION™“has helped all of us in becoming more sales minded. Everyone is working at always selling to the customers.”

Acclivus' Performance Development Partner Pat Marotta, who conducted the R³ transACTION™ sessions, attested to the skills transformation. “What this course has changed is that they now probe for the customer's needs, and then clearly show how the benefits of Mission products meet those specific needs,” Marotta said.

“The customer, for example, might have a need to satisfy a high-density Hispanic demographic customer base more effectively,” he explained. “If they probe for that need, they can suggest products from the category that fit the need exactly. Before, they would say 'This is what we have, or are promoting,' with no insight into the buyer's needs. It's an exceedingly competitive market, and the customer might have gone to another vendor had the Mission district sales manager not created superior value.”

Crane is pleased with the results. More than anything, “We are seeing more consistency across the country with all our accounts operating the same way whether we are in Florida or Oregon,” he said. “We're operating as a sales team.”

RESULTS AT A GLANCE

Growing Revenue, Volume and Margin - Negotiation Results at a Fortune 500® Corporation Business Goals: Increase revenue and volume Improve profitability Strengthen customer relationships Performance Challenges: Aggressive competition Cost-focused customers Limited influence Performance Needs: Differentiate beyond providing the lowest price Clarify and justify pricing and get something of value in return for each concession made Build executive-level relationships and influence the early stages of the customer's decision process The Complete Acclivus Solution: Executive planning and alignment sessions Implementation of Acclivus Sales Negotiation (ASN) Execution of the 12-week reinforcement and coaching program Measurement with web surveys and bottom-line tracking The Facts: 10 months time frame Pre/post ASN implementation Three ASN groups Three control groups All groups selected from the same territories, selling the same products, over the same period of time Fortune 500 is a registered trdemark of Time, Inc.

WELCOME NEW CLIENTS
Benefitmall
Borusan
Catalina Marketing
Hyster Company
Omgeo LLC

A TIMELY TOPIC AT SAMA

More than a decade ago, our clients began asking if we could help their service professionals become better communicators, in much the same way as we were helping their sales professionals. As a result, we launched a research effort that continues today. Our recent white paper—S³ Alignment: How Sales, Support, and Services Professionals Can Work Together to Increase Loyalty, Profit, and Revenue—details the latest research findings.

Last month, the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) annual conference in Dallas, TX provided our latest opportunity to share the alignment message. Lisa Napolitano, SAMA president and CEO, kicked off this global conference by saying, “The number one issue in managing strategic accounts is alignment.” Clearly our decade of research was well-spent.

Scott Watson, who heads Acclivus Consulting Services, and General Manager Ron Gajewski made two presentations at the conference. Their topic was “Why Sales Support and Services People Don't Work Well Together—and What to Do About It.” Over 120 strategic account executives participated in the highly-rated interactive sessions. What we learned:

• Because strategic account managers must harness the resources of their entire company, often with little or no authority, S³ Alignment™ is critical to success.
• Key clients increasingly expect sales and services organizations to work in alignment as a seamless team, and they have little tolerance for finger-pointing and uncoordinated efforts.
• Strategic account teams are perhaps more aligned than their general sales and services organizations, because of the higher stakes involved in working with a major account.
• Because our research showed that getting aligned can improve both revenue and profit by as much as seven percent, and because alignment involves little out-ofpocket expense, participants agreed that any revenue increase goes straight to the bottom line.

As with previous S³ presentations and focus groups, the research results confirmed the value of alignment and most participants asked themselves, “This is common sense, so why is it so rarely common practice?” That's a good question. If you occasionally feel like your sales and services professionals don't work well together, we should talk.

To discuss how Acclivus can help, call Steve Gray at 972-385-1277. For a copy of our S³ Alignment™ white paper, go to www.acclivus.com.

FACILITATOR FOCUS

Steve Walsh has worked with many global Fortune 1000 companies and has extensive experience as an OD consultant and facilitator. For the past 15 years Steve has provided organizational and sales consulting and training services to clients such as American Express, Bank of America, Smith Barney, Hewlett- Packard, Scientific-Atlanta, Rogers™ Wireless and KPMG. In addition to his consulting experience, Steve has personally trained and developed over 2500 sales, support and service staff and managers in numerous Fortune 1000 organizations. Steve currently works as a Senior Consultant and Performance Development Partner for Acclivus Corporation. He is certified to deliver sales, service and strategy programs for Acclivus clients.

Jo Ann Crabtree is a Performance Development Partner with Acclivus. She brings 19 years of experience in sales and management. Prior to joining Acclivus, Jo Ann spent five years with a global Fortune 200 company, where her responsibilities included executive level sales, sales training and development.

Currently, Jo Ann and her associates work with a number of companies developing and implementing strategies for growth and change through the development of their greatest asset, their people. During the past eight years, Jo Ann has consulted with Acclivus clients and delivered Acclivus workshops for many Acclivus clients such as BearingPoint, Johnson Controls, ProBusiness, Curative, DA Stuart and Wyle Electronics.

Steve Sheeren has facilitated a wide array of training curricula centered around sales and communication skills. Steve is adept at working with various levels of participant experience, from executive to new hire.

He has consulted with companies in the following industries: Aerospace, U.S. Government Agencies, Telecommunications, Food Products, Computer (businessto- business and retail) for both hardware and software companies, Financial Services, Pharmaceutical, Transportation and Logistics and Healthcare.

During the past three years, Steve has consulted with Acclivus clients and delivered Acclivus workshops for many Acclivus clients such as Rogers™ Wireless, BearingPoint and Verizon Wireless.

PROGRAM FOCUS

Sales negotiation differs from other forms of negotiation in that sales negotiators must develop and maintain long-term customer relationships while they achieve aggressive revenue objectives and ensure optimal results from the solutions they prescribe.

Acclivus Sales Negotiation™ enables sales, support and services professionals to achieve revenue objectives and strengthen customer relationships while preserving their own credibility, the integrity of their products and services, and the profitability of their organizations.

The more business professionals apply the Acclivus approach to negotiations, the more they will view negotiations as an opportunity—not an obstacle—on the way to achieving contractual agreement, and the stronger their negotiation position will be when they choose to negotiate.

Through the principles and techniques of Acclivus Sales Negotiation™, participants learn how to effectively

• identify, understand and respond to negotiating challenges and opportunities throughout the client's decision process
• elevate negotiations—and relationships—from the competitive level to the more productive cooperative and collaborative levels
• support and protect the interests and policies of their organization
• avoid entering into negotiations that cannot produce favorable outcomes
• prepare for negotiations in ways that ensure optimal returns for both parties

Acclivus Sales Negotiation™ is a threepart process. The initial two-day workshop is designed for 12-20 participants and provides a strong foundation for negotiation. Field implementation is encouraged and guided through a 12-week structured personal Follow Through plan. Finally, the one-day Part II: Mastery workshop provides reinforcement and takes the Acclivus approach to a new level by focusing on understanding and aligning mutual needs and negotiating at the collaborative level.

Acclivus Sales Negotiation™ uses

• instructor-led interactive workshops
• skill applications, group exercises, and role plays based on participants' own real-world negotiation situations
• video-based instruction and modeling
• team discussion, planning and strategy exercises

Acclivus Coaching™ provides sales, support, and services managers with the skills, techniques, and approaches necessary to produce consistently superior results as leaders of both people and performance.

Through more than a decade of research, Acclivus identified four factors that characterize those managers who achieve consistently superior results:

1. aggressive plan for development and performance
2. frequent and productive communication with their team
3. continued feedback regarding skills and results achieved
4. regularly reinforce the value of the work being done and the importance of the people doing the work

Acclivus Coaching™ provides leaders with proven skills, techniques and approaches that have a positive impact on both the performance and development of their people by

• identifying standards for performance
• developing the coaching dialogue
• planning the coaching call
• reviewing the coaching call and providing positive feedback
• creating a climate for performance
• establishing a plan and setting the stage for coaching
• implementing the coaching plan

Acclivus Coaching™ is a two-day workshop designed for 12-20 participants.

EVENTS

Association for Services Management International (AFSMI) 2005 World Conference

October 9-12, 2005 in Nashville, TN

Acclivus will be sponsoring and exhibiting at this conference for customer services and support executives and managers. In addition, Acclivus General Manager, Ron Gajewski, will be speaking on the topic, “Negotiation Techniques that Strengthen Customer Relationships and Protect Your Margins.”

Acclivus R3 Solutions Executive Briefings

Acclivus R3 Solutions will be conducting Executive Briefings in four major cities this summer. These invitation-only events are an excellent opportunity to learn more about how Acclivus R3 Solutions can provide immense value to your organization. For more information, please contact Steve Gray at 972-385-1277.

The Acclivus Update is a quarterly publication of Acclivus Corporation

Editor: Lisa McCoy

Please direct correspondence and address changes to:

Acclivus Marketing
14500 Midway Road
Dallas, TX 75244

972-385-1277
www.acclivus.com

©2005 Acclivus Corporation. All rights reserved.