Venga brings hospitality to the customer experience in the restaurant and fitness sectors. in Washington, D.C., in 2010, the company has a Founded rapidly-growing, innovative client base including Chef Jose Andres’ ThinkFood Group, Bloomin’ Brands, and Union Square Hospitality. Venga enhances the customer experience with its unique focus on integrating point-of-sale data with the online services clients use most.
As more restaurants became interested in Venga’s customer experience management software, the startup needed to expand its sales department. The existing department was small and, for the most part, had moved into sales from other disciplines. Therefore, while they had the energy, raw talent, and knowledge about the business to make things happen, there wasn’t a pure, professional sales background.
Maestro Group’s Proprietary Sales Training
Through the proprietary Phoenix Sales Transformation Method, Maestro uses audits, roleplays, workshops, and gap training to transform companies.
Venga hired Maestro Group in 2016-17 to optimize its sales approach while the organization was still small. In particular, they wanted their salespeople to become more confident in their trade and have are repeatable, scalable sales process in place that would set new sales hires up for success.
Maestro Group brought the external perspective that Venga’s sales force needed in order to reach a tipping point. The engagement began with intensive observation of Venga’s existing sales approach. Maestro Group observed demos, sales presentations, and internal meetings and identified opportunities to make an impact rapidly. “What really stood out was how quickly Will was able to generate insights into where the areas for improvement were,” said Venga co-founder and CEO Sam Pollaro.
The training then focused on helping Venga sales staff internalize best practices through active learning approaches such as role plays. Salespeople practiced leveraging
their solid knowledge of the business as a basis for confidence. For instance, by understanding the pricing and value proposition of their products, they became better able to support the pricing structure rather than offering discounts or incentives whenever a sale encountered an obstacle.
Sales knowledge, such as identifying viable leads, also helped improve the process and shorten the sales cycle. “We’re more quickly able to identify which prospects are not qualified,” Pollaro noted. “By getting them out of the pipeline, we can focus our efforts on the prospects that have a higher likelihood of becoming customers.”
Pollaro observed that one of the most important skills his sales staff acquired was confident communication with sales prospects. “It’s the idea that it’s better to ask hard questions instead of continuing to operate in the dark because you’re afraid to get an answer that you’re not looking for,” he said. A more assertive approach to these situations helped the sales staff get valuable information including potential objections earlier in the sales process. That knowledge enabled the sales team to develop a strategy to overcome obstacles and close deals faster, or stop allocating time to deals that were time-sinks.
Pollaro was particularly impressed by Maestro Group’s responsive approach to communication.
“Updates, status reports, and documentation would happen on a regular basis so that I always knew what was happening, even though I wasn’t directly involved in managing the engagement,” he recalled. As a CEO, Pollaro appreciated the real-time insight into opportunities and challenges for his organization—rather than waiting for an information dump at the end.
Lasting Results
In the year since Maestro Group’s sales training, Venga has deployed its empowered sales staff in support of a bold expansion into an entirely new market sector. The Venga Move product now allows fitness studios to enjoy the same sort of cutting-edge customer experience
management that Venga Dine has provided to restaurants.
As a result of their training with Maestro Group, the sales staff can deploy several new negotiation tools. They treat the sales process as a mutual relationship, requiring an “ask” in return for prospects’ requests. This conditions prospects to expect that concessions are a two-way street, leading to faster closes with less negotiation around terms. “Will also taught us how to leverage multiple decision makers in enterprise sales to spread the cost of our service over multiple departments or line items in the organization,” Sam recalled. This smart sales technique “helps to overcome objections related to cost and mitigates budget impact.” Venga sales people now have the knowledge and confidence to lead the negotiations to a positive outcome for both partners. Maestro Group is a data-driven, people-focused sales and marketing consultancy based in Washington, D.C. Maestro Group founder Will Fuentes draws on the sales and marketing expertise of a diverse cohort of professionals to transform organizations. Providing sales training, sales and marketing alignment, and workforce augmentation, Maestro Group is committed to helping businesses sell more, faster.
“We’re more quickly able to identify which prospects are not qualified. By getting them out of the pipeline, we can focus our efforts on the prospects that have a higher likelihood of becoming customers.”
– Sam Pollaro, Venga CEO
““During the engagement we were selling to what ultimately became our third largest account by revenue. It was a complex sale that involved a non-standard approach and Will helped us navigate that to a win.”
– Sam Pollaro, Venga CEO
Maestro Group is a data-driven, people-focused sales and marketing consultancy based in Washington, D.C. Maestro Group founder Will Fuentes draws on the sales and marketing expertise of a diverse cohort of professionals to transform organizations. Providing sales training, sales and marketing alignment, and workforce augmentation, Maestro Group is committed to helping businesses sell more, faster.
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