Luba
From recruitment to a full-service HR provider through new consultative sales behaviors
Challenge
Luba traditionally focused on recruitment. The company was positioned as an employee supplier, offering recruitment and placement services to small and medium enterprises. However, Luba’s management aimed to broaden their offering by also arranging employee transfers and exits.
The goal was to become a trusted partner for their clients by managing the entire employee flow. Therefore, a change in their current client approach was needed, but Luba didn’t know how to achieve this.
In 2014, the management team invited Krauthammer to facilitate a workshop during a summer event.
Krauthammer follows the principle of consultative-based selling (believing in partnerships and being an advisor to their clients) so they invited Luba to evaluate the workshop afterward and to discuss their needs. It was soon determined that the implementation of a new sales process was needed if Luba wanted to change from a supplier to a partner for its clients.
Having experienced the consultative-based selling approach directly through Krauthammer, Luba felt that this way of doing business could help them achieve their objective.
Solution
1st step: Workshops to assess the current state Several workshops were held together with the Luba management team to assess the current situation. During these workshops, the Krauthammer consultants and the Luba management framed the new sales process, following the principles of consultative-based selling.
2nd step: 5-day training for the management team to boost the new sales process The second step was to design a 5-day training for the management team to enable them to manage and coach employees on the new sales process: 3,5 days were dedicated to sales and 1,5 days to managing and coaching. Program elements for sales were “first contact”, “value proposition”, “objections handling” and “active references”. In the part on “managing and coaching” topics like “setting objectives”, “feedback”, “employee motivation” and “delegation” were covered.
Additional step: 4-day sales program for consultants & branch managers In addition to the management team, consultants and branch managers also followed a 4-day sales program. Boot camps to keep the learning fresh After the training, boot camps were organized in order to help keep up with the learnings and experiences that were made. The topic of each session is defined by the group, composed of branch managers and consultants. The Krauthammer consultant acted here as a facilitator.
Results
"Firstly, the quality of the client conversations has improved, and Luba’s new sales approach is lived within the organization: “When we first came in, we only wanted to get the vacancy. Today, we ask more questions, and we have different conversations.
The customer takes us more seriously and for many of them, we are now a trusted partner,” Doornenbal explains. Thirdly, the different phases of the sales process are integrated into Luba’s CRM system, and the sales process is transparent now.
Management can easily check which sales funnel a company is currently in. Also, how many companies turn into customers, and how many companies leave after a certain phase. The CRM is also a tool to help managers coach more precisely by looking at the phase that their direct report is good at, or where there’s room to improve. In total, thirty employees (including the management team) were trained.
Today, Luba continues developing its sales process, and Krauthammer is still working with the consultants and branch managers on improving their sales skills."
