Tell us about Building Systems Design (BSD):

Building Systems Design, Inc. develops and sells innovative software tools for the architecture, engineering, and construction markets of North America. Founded in 1983, the company creates, maintains, and supports advanced cost estimating and specification writing products in use by thousands of design professionals and contractors nationwide.

Please describe the CRM and Sales Automation environment before Tech.Sell^®:

We used a home grown MS Access based system. It is still used for accounting. It had very limited application for sales or marketing. Reporting was very minimal and had to be handled by a specialist from IT.

In 2005 we made a corporate commitment to implement the Solution Selling^® Methodology. Many thousands of dollars were spent training our sales and management teams. To support our investment in the sales team, we decided to upgrade our CRM/Sales Automation platform. We purchased ACT 2005 Corporate Edition for Workgroups, in hopes that ACT! ^® would take us to the next level.

Even though our ACT! ^® investment took us to the next level, it was a failure relative to our evolving sales process we were adopting at BSD. Technically the system was functional, but in practicality it didn’t work for us. Our system was basically an “out of the box” copy of ACT! ^®. It was not customized to meet our growing needs, and had absolutely no support for the Solution Selling^® process. There were no daily tools inherit in the system that reflected our sales process, and therefore forced our sales reps to manually track their pipeline and other sales activities outside of the CRM package. This resulted in sales reps wasting time on time consuming administrative tasks that minimized their selling time.

We tried to find a partner to help us tailor ACT! ^® to our specific needs, but could not find anyone knowledgeable or willing to spend the time with us to understand our struggles.  Additionally, we could not find a vendor or ACT! ^® partner that had an understanding of the sales process and my needs as a sales manager.  It was very frustrating.  We also noticed that as a smaller customer, we could not get timely and reliable responses to our questions or technical needs. To Index>

What attracted BSD to Tech.Sell^®?

Our recent investment in Solution Selling^® training was rapidly deteriorating without an easy, paperless way of supporting and tracking the process. I went to the internet for an answer and found Tech.Sell listed as a CRM partner on the SPI Sales Performance International^® site. Their Solution Selling^® for GoldMine^® (SSGM) looked promising.

Tech.Sell’s founder, Rick Mignano, took the time to listen to our needs and then give a guided tour of the GoldMine^® based system. Tech.Sell^® seemed to have a very strong grasp of both the sales and technology sides of the program.  I also felt that they cared about improving our sales results, not just selling a new box of software. To Index>

How has the Solution Selling^® Machine supported your investment in Solution Selling training?

With our new Solution Selling^® Machine for Goldmine^® software, our sales people came out of training and jumped right into an automated CRM system that worked the way they had just been trained. Our sales people had a seamless transition to support CRM and Solution Selling^®. I now had the tools to coach and manage my team without wasting any selling time on paperwork or administrative tasks. The built-in, ready-to-use Solution Selling^® reports provide critical measurement and accountability we were so desperately searching for. We all have a very clear view of our pipeline now.

Without the Solution Selling^® Machine for GoldMine^®, and the training that Tech.Sell^® provided, our program would have failed. To Index>

How has the Solution Selling^® Machine been adopted by the sales team?

They gladly welcomed it.  My sales people have completely adapted to the new system. They have found it to be extremely easy, fast and comprehensive. If it slowed them down, they wouldn’t use it. To succeed in growing our company, my reps need to be on the phone talking to prospects and selling.

Our sales reps use the Opportunity Worksheet report daily. It shows them the status of every deal, including those where no follow up is scheduled. They also like the Completed Activities Quick Look report. This shows them how many calls they and their counterparts have made. It encourages them to make more calls per day.

Because they are doing a better job of managing their pipelines, they are avoiding the “Big month, Bad Month”, up and down syndrome. To Index>

How has the system been able to help you as a coach and manager?

The system has made my job easier and more effective.  First and foremost, we finally have a true “sales” automation system. You could almost say a cookie cutter sales system. Because our sales process is now clearly defined and totally mirrored and supported by our CRM system, I can be confident that new additions to our sales team can be coached more easily and come up to speed more quickly. Measurement and accountability are built in, so I can coach or make hiring corrections on a much more cost effective basis.

The manager’s reports give me crystal clear visibility in identifying and tracking problems. I am much closer to the reps daily performance, allowing me to take actions more quickly. I really get a clear and comprehensive view into what’s happening.

The color-coded shared calendar is huge for us!  We can take one look and see who has web demos scheduled – color coding was a great improvement in quickly seeing who has scheduled what and when.

The Pipeline Milestone^® report shows me every rep’s opportunities and puts XXXs in a box for each completed step of our sales cycle. It shows me (and my reps) what parts of the process are being missed. With this insight, we are doing more steps, and doing the right steps. We now have more preparation and better follow up.  We know how long it is taking to move from one step to the next. In short, we have clear benchmarks for the entire sales process. To Index>

Have you noticed any results since implementing the program?

Because we sell to architects, our business has always been very seasonal. In the summer months, our customers are typically out in the field at job sites. This summer, thanks to our focused sales approach, we have blown sales out of the water.  Amazingly, this summer has been better than our best winter months!

Though we really only got up to speed in late spring, we have already enjoyed a 20 – 30% increase in sales growth largely due to the Solution Selling Machine.

The Solution Selling^® Machine enables us to have more selling time. Instead of losing deals, we are now managing and closing more deals a day. 

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Has the program evolved from the original vision? How?

Yes, in several respects. The combination of GoldMine^® and Tech.Sell’s support has allowed us to really utilize some amazing capabilities.

First would be our “email drip campaigns”. Tech.Sell^® created an automated process that automatically sends a regularly scheduled track of informative e-mails to prospects who indicated they were not interested or didn’t want to buy initially. Amazingly though, we have made 10 - 12 sales in the last 3 months due to these ‘drips’. These prospects no longer fell into a “black hole”.  Now, we always stay on these people’s (prospects) minds.  With a little more touching, people do come back and buy!

Telemarketing/lead development has been outsourced by BSD now for some time. We paid a ton of money, and while initially successful, we have experienced mediocre results for a while now.  Since using the Solution Selling^® Machine, we began to see that our evolving sales process and GoldMine were naturals for bringing this function in-house. The number one reason we finally decided to bring this service in-house, was our confidence in knowing we would be able to closely track and measure performance with our GoldMine system.

We have also tightly integrated QuoteWerks^® into our GoldMine^® system. Where our sales reps would spend as much as two hours generating a quote in the past, it now takes 5-10 minutes. The integration puts a link to the quote in GoldMine^®, creates a PDF, sends an automated e-mail, and creates a forecasted sale and follow-up call in GoldMine.

Finally, we have integrated Zetafax^® into our GoldMine^® system. This has made faxing literature and quotes a further continuation of the GoldMine^® system.  To Index>

How would you describe Tech.Sell’s role in your program to date?

The number one reason for our success has been the Tech.Sell^® team and their timely support and hand-holding.

Their support is critical to our success.  I can go to sleep at night knowing Tech.Sell^® is there.

With their support, we have not had to burden our IT staff with managing the GoldMine^® system.

Tech.Sell^® is always there to help in a reasonable time frame (minutes or hours). We find this to be very unusual in today’s outsourced tech support environment. 

They are very comfortable working with a Sales Director, as opposed to just the IT Department. Coaching on the system has been very helpful. While, it takes some time to digest all the capabilities of the Solution Selling^® Machine and GoldMine^® and realize its value, Tech.Sell’s personalized approach and follow up has allowed us to go at a pace that can be adopted by the team and experience incredible value at each step.

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