£14 million achieved within 3 months of working with SBR

SBR worked with Gemsev, a division of Talan UK, which had more than doubled its annual turnover to over £20 million, with a diversified portfolio of clients, contracts, and services. Following a Key Account Management training programme and an account retention workshop, they were also able to secure a multi-year renewal of large contracts worth £14 million.

SBR Consulting engaged with Gemserv (now part of Talan UK) at the C-suite level in a three-phase project, working with business development, sales, and consultants within the organisation to develop their confidence and capability across different parts of their sales process, from opportunity generation through to account development. SBR trained a variety of staff from across the business on sales pipelines, critical success factors, high-performance sales-enhancing tactics and systematic account planning.  SBR coached the delegates over a period of seven months to ensure adoption and equipped Gemserv (Talan UK’s) own trainers to onboard new team members with the techniques to ensure lasting success.

What did they want to achieve?

Gemserv was a fast-growing and successful arm of Talan UK, but it recognised that any sustainable business must be built on a proactive approach to acquiring, retaining, and developing customers. Helping the team feel comfortable and confident in their approach to finding business opportunities helps the overall business grow. They wanted to invest in developing their consultants to win new business and develop current accounts alongside their delivery responsibilities.

What issues were they facing?

The issues varied across the five different business units, but at the heart of each was the need for a clear structure and methodology to support sales effectiveness. The client wanted to turn their consultants into a rich source of leads to grow the pipeline and change the negative perception across the business of ‘selling’. The business has recently been acquired by a European professional services firm, necessitating even more rapid growth in EBITDA.

“My vision for the training programme we developed with SBR was to empower our consultant team to identify new opportunities in existing accounts and elsewhere.

SBR’s combination of systematic approaches has helped colleagues secure £millions of renewal revenue and pipeline.”

David Newell
Executive Director

The results

SBR added clear focus to the consultant teams and allowed them to embed their new knowledge into the onboarding and growth of the company. Now, the business is winning work more frequently, and selling is an integral part of their day-to-day role. The practical training fostered effective habits within the business, resulting in a more successful outcome. The consultants are now entering client meetings with new skills and a sales methodology that makes them feel more prepared to win business – their confidence has increased from 46% to 74%.  The confidence of the account team in securing the renewal of the £14m contracts was 51% prior to the SBR workshop; the renewal was achieved within three months.

SBR ran multiple programmes based on laying down a structured methodology for client engagement throughout the sales pipeline.