Circus Street

One misstep can make the difference between winning and losing a major account for technology companies that need to carefully coordinate regional sales teams and complex sales processes. This is certainly an all-too-familiar scenario for Kristy Houtman, General Manager, Australia, at Circus Street, a leading provider of digital marketing and business training, whose customers include some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical, retail, and consumer packaged goods companies. For Circus Street, successfully landing a new major account requires a carefully coordinated contact plan.

The Search for Global Account Planning That Connects Everyone

“Once we start speaking to a new customer, we begin with the marketing team as they have the need for the product, while the Learning & Development departments invariably hold the budget. When we’re working on a global account, this coordination is not only across departments but also across regions,” says Kristy. “It’s critical that we communicate with all stakeholders both across the company and across regions so all key stakeholders feel included in important conversations. This coordination with regional reps, who are working on closing their own part of the business at the account, can be a logistics headache that requires a lot of attention to detail.”

“When I get up in the morning, it’s not unusual for me to have 50 or more emails from team members in the U.S. or Europe discussing account plans and giving progress on deals,” Kristy continues. “On top of this, I get pulled into many large-account status calls, which are often scheduled late at night due to my time zone here in Australia. I knew there had to be a better way to get our sales teams on the same page. Why couldn’t all of our strategic account sales planning activities be organized right within Salesforce, where the entire team can easily view and update needed information?”

Rich Features and Native Salesforce Interface Make Prolifiq the Clear Choice

Kristy headed to the Salesforce AppExchange and was excited to find several options for sales planning tools. After reviewing the different options, Prolifiq CRUSH became the clear choice because of its fully native Salesforce interface and its powerful, intuitive account-planning features.

“The Prolifiq team worked closely with me at every step of the implementation and training process,” says Kristy. “I was able to easily make use of the visual org charts and relationship mapping, and I love how CRUSH is able to assign and track tasks seamlessly within Salesforce. I built out my first account plans, and when I showed these to my colleagues, they knew CRUSH was the right solution for us.”

Boosting Sales Productivity at Every Touchpoint

High on Kristy’s priority list for an account-planning tool was its ability to highlight new add-on sales opportunities within existing accounts. With its powerful whitespace features that identify and prioritize the best opportunities for growth, CRUSH fully checked the box.

“Once we start working with a client, word of mouth about our offerings typically spreads inside the company, opening up many opportunities to deliver our training to other departments,” says Kristy. “Today, when our account managers learn about these opportunities they can enter this intel within CRUSH, where the sales team can quickly see and act on it. Every week we have a quick touchpoint call about key accounts, and everyone is looking at the same version of the truth inside CRUSH, with tasks easily assigned and tracked within Salesforce.”

Liberating Sales Plans From Spreadsheets and Emails

“We have aggressive targets, and we all need to be aligned to achieve these,” says Kristy. “With CRUSH, we’re able to break down silos and have the entire scope of key account opportunities become transparent across our entire global sales team. Anyone on the team can tell you exactly where we are within a key account at any point in time. We simply couldn’t do this when our selling plans and communications were buried in spreadsheets and in email inboxes.”