Client Profile
Jamestown Container Companies is a provider of custom and stock corrugated packaging products and shipping supplies with locations in Rochester, Buffalo Jamestown and Yorkville, NY, as well as Cleveland, OH.
Business Situation
Throughout the past 57 years, Jamestown Container Companies (JCC) has built an outstanding reputation for providing custom corrugated packaging solutions and shipping supplies to its customers. In recent years, JCC found it more challenging to reach its annual sales goals specific to new account acquisition and growth.
JCC required a more dedicated and structured process model to establish constant and continuous market touches in support of its new account growth requirements. They lacked the necessary dedicated internal resources and skill sets to execute the required outbound activities to develop new account opportunities.
JCC was interested in developing a structured, long-term sales approach and process methodology that could identify and qualify prospects within various market segments, and ultimately focus on creating a steady flow of qualified leads for its sales team to pursue. The goal of this infrastructure model was to create an environment that would maximize account manager productivity and focus on only the most qualified relationships, with the intent to shorten its sales cycles and increase sales.
The Perfect Match
Jamestown Container Companies (JCC), partnered with Athena SWC, an outsourced provider of new business development, lead generation, marketing and sales support process model services. After learning about Athena’s methodology and disciplined approach to the front-end sales process, JCC believed they found a match with a company that held similar values to their own organization. Combined with providing a proven model that had been successfully implemented within similar packaging and manufacturing environments, JCC chose Athena as their new business development partner to support their new account sales growth targets.
Working Together with Common Goals
Upon initial engagement, JCC and Athena worked closely to create a multi-faceted program that focused on increasing market share for corrugated packaging and wholesale shipping supplies for Central Pennsylvania to the Central New York market. Athena invested a significant amount of upfront time to establish a comfortable relationship with JCC and a working knowledge of their operation and markets. It was imperative that both entities collaborated closely together to develop the necessary tools and strategy to implement a highly targeted and focused program.
Athena’s team worked hand-in-hand with the JCC team to develop appropriate, compelling messaging that resonated with prospects in their marketplace. From direct mail pieces (letters, post cards, technical cut sheets) to e-mail messaging, JCC and Athena collaborated to fine-tune the pieces to target specific industry needs and business pains for key decision makers. Additionally, the two teams worked cohesively to develop an extensive sales call execution script which provided the ability to extract viable market intelligence from prospects regarding purchasing, needs and trends. Athena was now fully equipped to successfully implement a key part of their program– outbound sales call execution. Soon after the initial kick-off meeting, Athena scheduled multiple qualified on-site meetings for the JCC sales team.
The Missing Piece
Athena’s holistic business development, marketing and sales support infrastructure provides JCC with the front-end sales process and methodology that tit was seeking. Athena provides the necessary sales momentum that JCC requires to generate measurable opportunities for growth, shorten its sales cycles and close the gap toward its annual new account sales growth goals. Its current experience with Athena’s process has provided JCC’s highly trained sales staff with the appropriate tools to continue to remain focused on the active selling process.
The Results
Within three months of the program’s inception, Jamestown Container Companies’ sales pipeline quickly filled with a number of appointments with new prospects, resulting in request for quotations (RFQs), which included a pipeline in excess of $300,000. In addition, JCC quickly closed two accounts resulting from Athena’s program efforts.