The organisation

Founded in 2005, Aspire Sports is a company on a mission: To engage 250,000 children in physical activity by 2020. Led by a passionate team, the organisation provides a variety of services to schools, including a PE mentoring programme for primary school teachers, sports activities, leadership programmes and apprenticeships. Thanks to Aspire, 1000s of children and young people in the midlands and beyond have the opportunity to participate to be active and have fun in the process.

The challenge

Aspire operate in a competitive market and have to convince school management teams to allocate scarce funds to activities that enhance their pupils health and well-being. Accessing school staff is not easy due to busy timetables, so any time in front of decision makers has to be effective and efficient.

The Aspire sales team is enthusiastic and believe strongly in what they are selling: The challenge was to make them as effective as possible through consistent use of a well thought out sales methodology.

Common sales organisation questions also had to be answered: Which schools should the sales team focus on? Where would Aspire services most be appreciated? What was the optimum size and structure of the sales force?

The solution

The project to help Aspire was based on 4 elements: Segmentation of customer base, sales process design, sales force sizing calculation and development of a sales methodology.

Using big data analysis methods, we discovered that some of the original hypotheses about which schools were most likely to buy from Aspire were not backed by the statistics. Accordingly, we co-developed a qualification tool which could be used to home in on the schools with the best fit for Aspire services. This was subsequently trained to the sales force via a quick question method.

Sizing and structure analysis gave Aspire clarity about how to move forward, and this resulted in structural changes to the team to focus best talents into the best roles.

We derived a sales process by working with the whole sales team to identify the best practices they discovered in action, and adding to it known best practices from the Selling Interactions “World Class Sales Organisation Database”. The sales process was then used to define what behaviours and attitudes would be most effective in action.

This set of tools, attitudes and processes constituted Aspire’s ‘sales DNA‘ and we then trained it extensively via a 4 day phased sales training programme, so that it became part of everyday action.

The Results

Today, the sales team is now in the process of diffusing the sales DNA to the wider organisation, most especially to those who have contact with schools and can be part of the customer experience. The sales DNA is a living entity and continues to develop as new best practices are discovered in action. Through the process of reflection and application, the sales force is now competent in developing its own sales methodology and making it happen.