How do you sell your products through a multi-tier system while maintaining brand consistency and mindshare with sellers and customers alike?
That was the challenge a large beverage company faced. While it has a global presence across more than a hundred countries and employs thousands of people in the United States, it must sell through a network of wholesalers who sell to retailers who then sell to consumers.
Because the company cannot sell directly to consumers, most selling is between the business and wholesalers. To make this more challenging, these wholesalers also sell products from competitors, making sales representatives' jobs complex.
When juggling hundreds of wholesale partners and thousands of salespeople, it can be hard to keep everything consistent. On top of that, every product the company sells has unique branding.
So they set out to simplify their operation. In the end, their implementation of Bigtincan achieved the following:
- Replaced outdated content management systems for marketing and sales teams
- Granted visibility into reseller content usage for the marketing team
- Allowed resellers to personalize content for customers based on region and product
- Collaborative communication & feedback loops for resellers to report back to corporate on product performance
- ROI on the Bigtincan platform
- Gradual rollout of platform to national and then global locations
- Time saved creating and finding content saved for corporate teams, wholesalers, and retailers
Get the details on how it all worked below.
Their old method
In the past, this business used Outlook, PowerPoint, and PDFs for sales content. These items would flow down to the wholesalers and hopefully eventually make their way to the frontline sales teams.
This process was inefficient and prone to errors. Sometimes salespeople would end up with out-of-date logos and programs.
These problems left the business wanting something more streamlined and easier to understand for their sales representatives. They needed something simple and easily accessible.
The solution that they eventually discovered was Bigtincan.
Their new channel enablement solution
There were three main reasons why this beverage company chose Bigtincan:
- Content analytics and optimization — The marketing teams get automated feedback on if/how content is being utilized and shared by all of their different resellers. They can see what's working and what isn't, and know when to reach out to an underactive team.
- Simplified user journey and accessibility — The platform is easy for all frontline sales team members to access and navigate, whether they're online, offline, or on any device whether it’s a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.
- Innovative tech — The team was impressed by Bigtincan’s forward-thinking approach to enablement, and how the platform is built to grow with them as their business and new tech develops.
So, what does this look like in the day-to-day routine of salespeople?
First of all, it starts with planning.
Sellers analyze what a retailer is looking for and compare it with similar accounts in the same area.
When negotiating, sellers can use the sell sheets, videos, and other content provided in their enablement portal to sell their products.
Lastly, sellers communicate their orders or content to their retailer through Bigtincan and lets their manager know what they accomplished.
How Bigtincan does CPG reseller enablement
Example of a custom CPG channel partner enablement portal by Bigtincan
With Bigtincan, a salesperson has the option of leveraging the content they need, customizing it as appropriate to meet their requirements.
One obstacle for sell sheets is the fact that the pricing of their products varies across the country. Because of this, they cannot put any pricing on sell sheets.
But with Bigtincan, a seller can type in their local pricing, save it, and create a customized sell sheet.
Bigtincan helps with feedback. There's a form where salespeople can leave ratings and comments. They can even share this info with a retailer.
Another helpful feature is the option to set an expiration date for a piece of content. For example, if there's a sweepstake, the seller can select the expiration date, so the content will be automatically removed when that date arrives.
Even reporting is seamless. The company can track how people are using the content and who they're sharing it with at every user level.
Expanding the program to all locations
The beverage company began using Bigtincan with a pilot program in three locations across the United States.
For about two months, they tracked the results to see if Bigtincan was paying off. Both the quantitative and qualitative metrics showed a clear return on investment!
The following month, they began gradually ramping up from three locations to hundreds of wholesalers.
The company continues to look at metrics and listen to what sellers are telling them. Each time they review those results, they adjust and move onto more locations.
One key metric was whether or not sales reps would recommend the application to others. Overwhelmingly, the answer was yes – they would!
Another valuable metric showed who was looking at the sheets. In the past, the individual brand teams would work with agencies that would post onto a website. The visibility of who was looking at the sheets would end there.
With Bigtincan, they can see who's looking at the sheets and how long they're looking.
An evolving purpose
While the initial partnership was all about sell sheets, it has evolved into so much more than that.
Sellers can now receive their internal targets through a push notification.
The success of the rollout can be attributed to the content from corporate and the fact that wholesalers can use it to publish their local content.
This ability has helped the business move away from an email-driven approach. Brand activity and local functions are available in one place. No inbox searching necessary!
The dream for the company is to use Bigtincan for even more daily routines. Bigtincan will hopefully become a one-stop-shop for the needs of sellers on the frontline. Salespeople can go to the platform for content and communication from management.
Managers can go into Bigtincan and see who's looked at the meeting slides, enforcing good behavior and eliminating unnecessary questions.
Bigtincan for CPG channel enablement
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