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Business Guidance Training Case Study: Vonore Sports Inc.

Sales Team Overview and Work Sheets Discovery and Business Guidance

Purpose: The Case Study is to be used by students of the HCS training course to help them understand and utilize the information, tools, guidebooks, and skills presented during the class. The case study is based upon group interaction and will involve Discovery, Business Guidance Assessment and Solution Recommendation. Role Play Exercise-Summary: 1. Review the entire Case Study, note key points of information 2. Develop a “Sales Game Plan” to work the opportunity, assuming sales call with a partner salesperson and 3. Role play the various steps of the call with a prospective customer. Seek what the Business Guidance recommendation would be.

HINT: Use your Discovery Guide book questions during the role play. All participants will utilize the materials available in this Case Study and are allowed to create basic and realistic business assumptions.

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CASE STUDY:

Instructions:

1. All students will be segmented by the instructor into groups of three or more. Depending upon class size, each group should contain Partner salespeople. Each member of sales team will perform the function of the “Account Manager” during the role play and it is expected that each person will participate in the Discovery phase.

2. During the initial step the entire team will read the Case Study. Based on

THE INFORMATION revealed, discuss with your team the key business challenges or issues facing the prospective customer, identify key points of information, and begin to define your sales strategies. Begin to develop necessary account information and sales discovery questions. USE PRE-CALL SALES STRATEGY ANALYSIS.

3. Each sales team will be meeting individually with the President, CFO,

VP of Sales and VP of Mfg. from Vonore Sports Inc. 4. The first sales action: Each team may ask the CIO, played by the

instructor, two (2) questions. Using the Discovery Guide, your goal is to attempt to understand what the over arching business challenges of Vonore Sports Inc.

5. The prospective customer management team will receive additional

information from the instructor. The sales team will not have access to this information – as the sales team’s goal is to extract key points of information from members of Vonore Sports’ management team during the sales discovery meetings. Each person playing a member of Customer Team will rotate through the various sales teams.

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6. After each team has asked the CIO their defined questions, they will then

continue to prepare for the role play.

The sales team will prepare customized questions using the Discovery Guide focused on determining the relative priority of the Business Challenges listed and gathering key points of information.

The person playing the role of the prospect customer team will prepare to play the roles. Be sure to read all the information on each person on the management team. You need to have the entire “back-story” of what is going on within Vonore Sports. This will help you answer the questions and play the role more effectively.

7. The sales team will utilize the HCS Business Guidance Guidebook,

specifically the Discovery Guide to determine the top business challenge to probe deeper and find out the phase for each business challenge. Note taking and question preparation worksheets are provided in the Case Study.

8. After each call the Sales Team will prepare the appropriate Sales Call

Recap information and the Customer Management Team member will score the sales call.

9. After the sales team has considered their findings from their first call; they

then will expand their presence within the account and make a second, third and fourth sales call, through the rotation of Vonore Sports’ management team. The goal of each call is to gather additional information/data to be prepared to create a Solutions Recommendation with HCS Business Guidance

10. After each call, both teams will perform the Post Call Recap and Review. 11. At completion of the exercise, both the Sales Team AND the prospective

Customer Team members (individually) will prepare the HCS Business Guidance Assessment and the HCS Sales Summary Worksheet from their perspective handouts. Use EXHIBIT A (Sales Team) and EXHIBIT B (Vonore Sports Inc. team)

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Vonore Sports Inc.

Prospective Company Profile: Vonore Sports is a manufacturer of consumer recreational products: marine/boating, winter sports, gaming equipment, and sports entertainment centers. For 22 years they have grown their firm with unique products, expanding the base of retail dealers who sell their products directly to the end-users. They have built a strong base of committed retail dealers, a well respected name in the channel, and loyal end user market. They utilize active retail dealer councils to stay involved with their marketplace, testing product offerings, maintaining competitive assessments and pricing. Your current client, Recreation Unlimited, Inc. recommended you to contact Vonore Sports Inc. The President of Recreation, Alan Jackson, knows the founder of Vonore Sports from many years in the business. They sell into the same market as Vonore Sports Inc. Recreation Unlimited utilizes their own direct salespeople and offers non-competitive but related products and services to the same retail dealer channel. You have implemented a variety of solutions to improve Recreation Unlimited’s remote salesperson communications and improve the on-line retail dealer order-entry-inventory and communication systems. In addition you have created a technology plan to enhance the IT efficiency for their companies for the next 3 years. Vonore Sports has 3 distribution centers, and subcontracts all of their manufacturing with vendors in the US, South America, and is only beginning to consider the Asia market. Most products are created by the manufacturing group and the company is known for its unique products and marketing programs. Generally the end-users of Vonore Sports products are not directly affected by an increase in cost of living; i.e. gas, food, housing. Individuals with higher levels of disposable income are important to this market; sales and marketing in this sector plays to an upscale life style. Vonore Sports considers themselves to be creative and edgy in their image. Customer service issues are initially managed by the retail dealer with the company providing a customer service/retail dealer support department as a back up support function. They are a privately held company, located in Knoxville, TN with all management functions located in a central facility.

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Financial Profile: Vonore Sports sells to a worldwide market; however the majority of the sales are US and Europe, with limited sales to APAC. Sales for 2012 were $745 million, somewhat flat over 2011. They sell through 340 retail dealers with 55% of their revenues coming from 85 locations. Vonore Sports’ manufacturing costs, domestic overhead, and marketing costs have grown at higher rates than the industry. Currently most products are purchased for resell or manufactured by outsourced firms Competition is using Asia-based manufacturing. They have direct salespeople throughout Canada (4), US (15), and Europe (25). A distribution warehouse is located in TN (1) and Taormina, Italy (1) Value Proposition of Vonore Sports: “We Deliver Fun” Technology Profile The following technology overview was provided by a sales partner that provides non-competitive but related technical services to Vonore Sports Inc. It is as accurate as we know: Cisco catalyst switches 6500 series Edge routers - ISR (if NEW customer then just edge routers) Avaya PBX (Voice mail) Total Handset’s 315 Leased lines Firewall Database server with customer information Salesforce.com, CRM application Email server Operating Systems: Microsoft

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Industry Overview and Competitive Analysis: Trend Review: Consumer Recreational Industry The retail dealers in this industry are being acquired and merged, meaning a more mature state of the market. There are more 20-plus location Super Owners and a growing number of 5-plus store owners than ever before. This increases the need to recognize: 1. A more sophisticated approach to their business needs 2. Less reseller loyalty 3. The need to improve communications and 4. The potential for larger discounts based upon quantity purchases and negotiation powers of larger retail dealers (lower margins). Many entrepreneurial retail dealers are being taken out of the market bringing an increase in management, marketing and sales savvy at the retail dealer level. New product innovation and the integration of creative technology is the key for new levels of product acceptance and to drive end-user awareness. Competition from major corporations continues to dominate the market, they tend to purchase smaller “new idea manufacturing or distribution firms”. Industry margins for retail dealers are 45% There is a consolidation within the manufacturing segment of this industry. Market growth overall is averaging 11%, Vonore Sports has been averaging 8.5% Vonore Sports’ competitive position has been retail dealer loyalty and unique product offerings.

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Company Management Team Overview Titles Profile Business Issues President: Kris T. Thomas II President of 7 years,

has been involved in the company for 9 years

Knows the business, has limited relationships with reseller channel, wants to keep the business growing

CFO: Pat Severson New to the company,

just 6 months Concerned about operational control, efficiency, margin erosion, reduction of costs, and improvement of management systems.

CIO: Wallace C. Molson

Involved in the technology area within company for 5 years, CIO the last 2. Has been reluctant to drive new initiatives

Keeping the various technology systems up to speed and stretched on budget and personnel

VP of Sales: Terry Jones 8 years with company, very direct, responsible for building the channel of retail dealers and creating the Reseller Councils. Has a vision for the company.

Increased levels of sales and company and reseller salesperson productivity, with lower COS.

VP of Mfg.: Sam Jones 15 Years with company Has lead Mfg and Product Development

Quality Control, New Product Development and Product Marketing

Jimmy Nielson, Director Marketing

8 months Customer Service, End User Loyalty Dealers

Marty Shirra, Mgmt. 4 months Cost focus, efficient

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Systems use of technology, past Cisco UC experience

NOTES:

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Pre-Call Sales Strategy Analysis and Review

□ What facts do you know?

□ What information do you need to know?

□ Who most likely will provide that information?

□ What assumptions must you make?

□ Using the Discovery Guide prepare the Discovery questions to uncover information, the top business challenges, and customer value/benefits.

o What questions will you ask of each appropriate person in each

area below? NOTES:

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CIO Sales Call Preparation and Discovery Review

For the purpose of the role play and to better understand the prospect, for each Business Challenge listed below, what questions would the sales team like to ask the CIO? Operational Efficiency: Customer Responsiveness: Cost Containment: Security:

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Vonore Sports Inc. Smart Business Road Map

Call Sales Strategy and Discovery Worksheet

Now that you have completed the initial Reviews, the Discovery Guide, and your call with the CIO, prepare for your sales call meetings by thinking through what questions you would ask in each of the following categories regarding the top business challenges (make sure to look at all of the questions in the Value Assessment Guide for each top challenges. You will need to determine the phase Vonore Sports is in for each business challenge. You will need this to determine and create Vonore Sports’ appropriate Solution Roadmap. Define and personalize the questions for each of your sales calls and decide which members of your sales team will ask which questions. President: Kris T. Thomas II Sales Call: Define Business Challenge Questions (from the Assessment Guide)

□ Situation

□ Consequences

□ Cost

□ Capabilities

□ Value

□ Maximizing Opportunity

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CFO: Pat Severson Sales Call: Define Business Challenge Questions (from the Assessment Guide)

□ Situation

□ Consequences

□ Cost

□ Capabilities

□ Value

□ Maximizing Opportunity VP of Sales: Terry Jones: Sales Call Define Business Challenge Questions (from the Assessment Guide)

□ Situation

□ Consequences

□ Cost

□ Capabilities

□ Value

□ Maximizing Opportunity

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VP of Mfg:SamJones: Sales Call Define Business Challenge Questions (from the Assessment Guide)

□ Situation

□ Consequences

□ Cost

□ Capabilities

□ Value

□ Maximizing Opportunity

STOP! Do Not Move Beyond This Point

Until After Your First Sales Call.

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Account Prospect Profile Strategy Map Name Perceived Key

Business Issues (KBI)

BDM Level/Action Steps

Board CEO: Kris Thomas CFO: Pat Severson CIO: Wallace C. Molson

VP of Sales: Terry Jones

VP Mfg. Sam Jones

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Post Sales Call Recap & Review Based upon your meeting: What did you learn? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Customer Name Define Key Business Challenges Kris T Thomas____________ _______________________________ Pat Severson_____________ _______________________________ Terry Jones_____________ _______________________________ Sam Jones_______________ _______________________________ Wallace Molson___________ _______________________________ From your discussion, rank in order, what you believe are the key business challenges of Vonore Sports Inc.: ____ Operational Efficiency; ____ Customer Responsiveness, ____ Cost Containment, or ____ Security _____ Information Security _____ Compliance NOTES:

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Exhibit A HCS Case Study

Sales Team Summary Preparation: Discovery

Sales Team: _________________ Based on the Discovery Guide, by level of priority, rank what you believe are the key business challenges facing the prospective client and identify their phase of evolution: Operational Efficiency ___ Customer Responsiveness ___ Cost Containment ___ Security ___ What information did you uncover during your discovery that was insightful? ________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ As team/individuals what would you have done differently if you could make the sales calls over again? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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NOTES: