Sophos are a global security software and hardware company who develop ICT security that generates over half a billion in revenue per year.
“The programme created positive work attitudes, helped remove unproductive work habits, kept the salespeople calm under pressure. We now focus on looking at data, instead of always focusing on lagging indicators.
Partnering with a third party like SBR, rather than doing everything in-house, you can have a really meaningful impact on the teams that you support, which is ultimately the sales organisation.”
Steve Pegler, Senior Manager of Sales Enablement EMEA at Sophos.
WHAT ISSUES WERE THEY FACING?
Across the multi year relationship with Sophos we have supported them by addressing multiple issues and opportunities in their sales leader and sales rep community.
At a sales manager level, the business faced the common scenario of having promoted successful reps into manager roles without them necessarily having a clear development track or set of sales management best practices to follow. Equally many of their experienced managers had been successful working in high growth conditions and there was a recognised need to arm them with the tools needed to succeed in a more competitive environment.
At a sales level, there was a need to capitalise on opportunities to cross-sell and upsell to proactively generate qualified leads in their SDR function and maximise conversion rates and effectiveness across the sales process.
SBR’S APPROACH
We partnered with key stakeholders in the organisation to develop bespoke programmes and deliverables to address to identified issues. These included a global management development programme, a set of sales competencies, an SDR effectiveness programme, a programme for their renewal specialists, and another programme for their mid-market sales reps.
THE RESULTS
Example results from the different programmes include:
The SDRs generated 88% more ‘Qualified Sales Opportunities’ (QSOs).
The number of opportunities being accepted by the sales teams increased by 170%.
The average revenue from QSOs went up by 142%.
The Marketing qualified lead (MQLs) to sales qualified lead (SQLs) conversion increased by 95%.
Closed : won ratio went up by 153%.
There was an 11% improvement in their cross-selling capability.
