Farecla Products Ltd - Strategic Sales Planning

Farécla Products is an international market leader in automotive aftercare products, with outlets in over 100 countries across all five continents. In the UK, and elsewhere, much of the company’s sales success relies on reps out on the road, covering the length and breadth of the country to promote and sell the Farécla range.

However Farécla were finding that, although good at their jobs, many of the reps were operating in isolation, not communicating with or consulting their colleagues as much as they might to share problems and identify new opportunities, for instance. There were also time management issues which needed to be addressed.

Recognising that this was not something they could handle in house, they decided to call upon the specialist expertise of MR Dynamics, an organisation of which they were aware but had not worked with previously.

"The first project they developed for us was a two-day team building exercise with our sales force," says Craig Mortimer, Farécla’s UK Sales Manager. "I was very impressed right from the start, as were most of my colleagues…even those who had originally been sceptical about what MRD might be able to achieve. Frankly, it was one of the best team building exercises we’d ever experienced and, as a result, we have carried on the ideas MRD introduced. We regularly monitor progress to make sure we don’t lapse into old habits!" said Craig.

More recently a further challenge awaited MRD, when Farécla decided to introduce a second, lower management level, reporting to the existing sales team. The aim was to free up the senior reps so that they had more time to exploit new business opportunities, while at the same time managing their more junior colleagues in their role of maintaining the existing customer base.

"To address all the issues involved, particularly those of time management, MR Dynamics ran two tailor-made sales planning days for us in Summer 2007," said Craig Mortimer. "We were delighted, once again, with what they were able to achieve with our sales force and the different management levels."

MR Dynamics is now working with Craig and the Farécla sales force in a number of other sales-related areas, including the development of a 6-hour sales course designed to give Farécla customers greater involvement in the company’s culture. In addition to this other departments within Farécla are now taking advantage of MRD’s coaching and training skills on a variety of projects.