Case Studies: Institutionalizing an Inside Sales Function
An alternative asset allocation firm in the early stages of developing an Inside Sales Function needed to institutionalize its sales model in preparation for future expansion.
"Adroit's work will enable us to provide better service and coverage of our Financial Advisors while decreasing complexity and costs from our initial plans."
VP of Business Development, Alternative Asset Allocation Firm
Business Issue
An alternative asset allocation firm historically leveraged Outside Sales resources to promote its funds to financial advisors and brokerage offices. In order to cover more ground and utilize its expensive Outside Sales resources in the most effective way, the firm created an Inside Sales function.
An initial strategy for Inside Sales had been developed that articulated how the function would work with the Outside Sales resources to drive growth of the funds. Though the strategy was defined and communicated to the sales teams, sales management knew that the various sales functions were not working seamlessly in their sales efforts, and that too much of the activity was driven by individual initiative rather than by a defined sales process with assigned roles and responsibilities. As a result, the new sales model was not meeting its ROI targets.
As the company planned to expand the Inside Sales function in the future, it needed to institutionalize the function with clear roles, responsibilities and supporting technology, so that new hires to the company could quickly become productive in their roles and drive increased growth of the funds.
Adroit's Role
Adroit was hired to validate the initial Inside Sales strategy and develop finalized roles, responsibilities, workflow, handoffs, and supporting technology that supported the institutionalization of the function.
Deliverables on this engagement included:
- A SWOT analysis of the current sales model
- Day in the Life scenarios for current Inside Sales reps
- Recommended Roles and Responsibilities across the sales cycle
- Customer ownership
- Strategic objectives of each sales role at points in the sales process
- Financial Advisor Lifecycle Management Stages
- Recommended handoffs between Inside and Outside Sales at each stage
- Enhancements to CRM tool to better support Inside and Outside sales functions
- Capacity and workload quantification
- Measures and Metrics by role
- Compensation strategy recommendations
Outcome
Based on this work, the company made shifts to its Inside Sales model that increased the ROI of the function. The company is already planning to hire 2 additional Inside Sales reps and will have faster results from these new hires. The revised model is supported by technology and processes that will improve the ability of each of the sales resources to execute the strategy, rather than relying on individual initiative alone.
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