Success Story: American Roller Company
Learn how our approach helped reshape the mindset, tactics, and skills of one client’s sales force.
American Roller Company (ARCO) is a 75-year-old company headquartered in Union Grove, WI. They provide comprehensive solutions from custom-built rollers, to roller and component coatings, to roller repair. Their primary business is focused on core fabrication and design services, specialty rollers, industrial coatings and coverings, and roller repair and testing services. They serve a diverse range of industries, such as plastic film and sheet, battery and power storage, flexible packaging, food and beverage, as well as glass, paper, and medical products.
ARCO differentiates themselves in high-end, specialty applications that require complex design and engineering, allowing them to effectively serve demanding clients and provide higher value-added services than their competitors. They have extensive laboratory facilities for research and development across multiple applications.
The Challenge:
ARCO is owned by a private equity firm that expects their organization to grow at a faster pace than their industry peers. To do so, they needed to take business from competitors, expand into additional geographies, serve new clients, and offer a broader range of services.
These prospective growth opportunities could be maximized by applying novel marketing strategies and developing a more “hunter-driven” sales force. However, the size of their business was limiting to their success in terms of both new talent and fresh ideas.
The Solution:
ARCO turned to Sudden Impact Marketing for assistance. We deployed a two-pronged approach to 1) Generate new leads to serve clients outside their current base and 2) Upgrade and invigorate the sales force with a new hunter mindset, teaching them updated skills to develop and grow their territories.
For our demand generation program, we focused on coatings—the most profitable segment of ARCO’s business—but which represented less than 20 percent of the total company sales. Our primary goal was to create as many effective coatings leads as possible for ARCO’s business development team.
Our lead-generation team generated a prospect list in two market segments: 1) Blown film and 2) Tapes/adhesives. We connected with clients, cultivated interest, and turned leads over to ARCO’s sales team. The sales team then offered a sample service or booked a new service, effectively securing a new client.
To upgrade the sales force, we delivered our Sales Impact program featuring (Value Impact Process) VIP Leaders and Sellers. This program shepherded ARCO leadership through a dynamic workshop focused on augmenting the role of sales leadership, assessing the sales force, mapping out an approach to a more aggressive front-end organization, and developing the team to deliver results. Sellers went through five online training sessions, which taught them how to “hunt.” From qualifying pursuits, planning account strategies, and building value propositions, to delivering effective meeting and negotiation skills, to closing deals, the VIP process was taught in short segments while working through real-world deals and requiring the participants to demonstrate knowledge retention from one class to the next.
The results:
By delivering this one-two punch of pro-active marketing and sales team development in only 90 days, ARCO saw a significant jump in new opportunities and was able to close deals with most of their new leads.
The sales organization developed into a growth-driven team of outside sellers focused on growing new business and beating their competitors, while the inside sales team took on the responsibility of protecting their existing business and improving current client experiences to ensure satisfaction.
All of this was accomplished in an industry that has remained static for more than 50 years.
Conclusion:
Our approach to combined marketing and sales development works for any size company that possesses the ambition to grow. And it is particularly well suited to companies backed by private equity and which need to demonstrate substantial ROI.
Our approach to sales training focuses on dissecting active opportunities to enhance strategic sales skills and increase win rates, as well as developing the sales leadership team to ensure the successful implementation of those skills.