Company Background

Vitaco was formed in 2007 as a result of two Australian Health & wellness companies merging. With an impressive portfolio of iconic brands, private label manufacturing contracts and export sales they have become the largest natural health supplement and specialist food and beverage manufacturer in Australasia and now servicing global markets. 

The Challenge

Vitaco operates in the highly competitive retail market space where each customer has a number of suppliers they can purchase from.  Often this means that the customer place more focuses on leveraging the competitive nature of the industry to get better deals on price instead of exploring a value add proposition.

To be successful in this environment, the Vitaco salesperson needs to have not only a high level of relationship building skills but also negotiation skills, as well as the ability to position Vitaco as a first choice supplier across a broad range of products. 

For the sales people, the challenge was to change their ‘order taking’ mentality and the typical conversation they would have around that scenario to one where they use a proactive approach to align a consultative sales approach with the customers buying process.

Vitaco operates on a very thin FTE structure State managers in addition to supporting their downline reports had responsibility for their own portfolio of major clients. Moreover, the NSW and Victorian Manager had responsibility for sales activities in South Australia and Queensland.

Also, the time and distance challenges of managing down the line reports hundreds of kilometres away.  They had limited experience in identifying team member skills deficiencies and the underlying reasons that caused them. Although experienced in providing feedback they lacked the necessary coaching skills to implement and support a sustainable skills development program. 

The Solution

Prosell was chosen because of our experience and focus on sales and performance coaching, the strength of our team and our ability to design and execute a tailor made solution.

After detailed diagnosis that produced the overall action plan and priorities for improvement, Prosell’s program was conducted in 3 phases. The first phase was to work with senior management to put in place the standards for sales management activities.

This in turn allowed phase 2 to be implemented effectively, which was a series of workshops for managers and the internal and external sales people. 

The managers’ workshop made sure that managers had the ability to assess, coach and improve the performance of the sales people. The sales workshops focussed on the sales skills necessary to drive sales conversation’s that differentiated Vitaco from the competitors and relegating the price discussion down the order of priority.

Phase 3 was the transfer of skills and standards from classroom to workplace.  Prosell’s Licence to Coach™ process was used, which gave managers one on one coaching and feedback, to the point where their coaching expertise was measurably changing the results of the sales people.  Phase 3 also included embedding ‘best practice’ into the company, which involved working with Senior Management  to make sure all the standards were included in performance measurement and review systems.

The Outcome

“We have been putting into practice the Prosell formula for just over a month. The team have taken this on board and are having some great successes.  The information they are uncovering and additional sales they are achieving it isall due to Prosell.  May was the first month every rep hit their target, and we are on track to hit Jun’s number as well.  I have raised our sales forecast as we look like we will overachieve in June as well.  We still have a long way to go to have Prosell become second nature to us as we still slip back into old habits or lose our way during a call.”

Charley Kelly | National Sales & Business Manager