John Deere success story: 30% higher turnover by August than in the entire previous year

The agricultural machine manufacturer John Deere wanted effective, targeted sales training with measurable results. As a basic target, John Deere defined the achievement of a market share above 30 %.

The John Deere sales board selected the most experienced and successful John Deere sales consultants to test the quality and effectiveness of the training with experienced employees. In addition to a personal development horizon, quantified sales targets were defined for each individual John Deere sales consultant within the scope of the training programme:

• D.O.B Landtechnik AG’s goal was to achieve a margin above 8 %. At the same time, their turnover and own market share were to be increased. Furthermore, the training was to generate 100 new customer appointments. During the training, 176 new customer appointments were generated live by the sales consultants at DOB AG.
• Deppe & Stücker Landmaschinen GmbH also defined a significant increase in new customer appointments as the programme’s goal. Together with the trainer, the company set itself the target of generating 120 new customer appointments. The result was that 280 new customer appointments were arranged by the sales consultants.

The result: From January to August 2022 alone, the training conducted by IWP trainer Wilfred Kochannek resulted in >30 % increase in turnover compared to the entire previous year 2021.
The targets of the individual sales consultants were also clearly exceeded. For example, at D.O.B Landtechnik, instead of the 100 appointments targeted, a total of 176 customer appointments were made. This corresponds to a target achievement of 176 %.

With the participants divided into several groups, Wilfried Kochannek conducted eight days of classroom training with each group. In addition to the telephone training (getting through to the decision-maker, handling the decision-maker’s objections), the content also included the actual sales talk (qualifying needs, price negotiation, closing strategies, up-selling and cross-selling).

Structured dialogue guidelines were developed for telephone acquisition and sales talks and then practised in simulated customer talks.

Following the classroom training, Wilfried Kochannek accompanied the salespersons with regular telephone calls and video calls. In this manner, questions could be answered directly, and a target/performance comparison of target achievement could be conducted on a regular basis.

Anyone who asks Wilfried Kochannek on what he puts particular emphasis usually receives the answer: the following questions:

• What do we want to achieve? How do we pursue our goal?
• Which strategy shall we employ?

And equally important – self-reflection after the appointment:

• What was achieved during each customer visit?

By critically reflecting on a past sales talk, the salespersons continuously learn and adopt valuable resolutions, because the next customer talk is already in the pipeline.

D.O.B Landtechnik AG is one of the largest John Deere authorised dealers in the DACH region and participated in the IWP training with its own sales consultants. D.O.B board member Anton Loibl is elated:

IWP and Wilfried Kochannek are delighted with the successes achieved and look forward to continuing to support John Deere with target and result-oriented training measures.

The participants, too, are thrilled with the training. Watch the entire germanproject report in the video now.