Cargill Sellers Increase Revenue by 30%

The Challenge

To enhance the customer experience and evolve sales practices from demand fulfillment to demand creation, Cargill launched a Sales Effectiveness initiative aimed at improving selling efforts across the world. This initiative was launched to maintain Cargill’s number one position, expand market position, grow shares of business in key accounts, and increase margins to drive profitability.

The Sales Effectiveness initiative focused on aligning sales functions around consistent sales knowledge and skills; establishing a common sales language, and putting in place key practices for how salespeople qualify leads, position the Cargill story, and serve a diverse range of customer needs. The entire solution is supported, reinforced, and sustained by a Sales Manager Development program, with the specific goal of building strong sales coaching cadence and skills.

The Approach

Working with Richardson Sales Performance, Cargill evaluated its existing sales processes, compared strengths against best practices, and established a sales cycle that would resonate among all teams. The Cargill Sales Framework addressed six stages of the sales process: Explore, Discover, Create, Present, Close, and Strengthen and Expand Relationships. For each stage, high-impact activities and specific measures of success were defined. 

Richardson Sales Performance worked with Cargill to customize a curriculum to train salespeople to effectively engage, sell, serve, and retain customers, as well as train sales managers to coach and train sales leaders to lead organizations. An additional goal was delivering rapid value to the organization in three main areas: customer satisfaction, market share, and overall financial return. 

In addition to the comprehensive instructor-led training, Cargill employs diagnostic instruments as well as post-training sustainment tools, including gamification, manager-led reinforcement sessions, newsletters, e-learning, and webinars. All of these assets are used as part of a measurement system in accordance with Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation Model. Cargill’s Learning and Development team designed a comprehensive change management strategy to ensure long-term program success and to get crucial buy-in from the leadership of each business unit. Cargill’s Sales Effectiveness program guide summarized goals, details, workflows, timelines, and change management models and served to gain executive sponsorship.