Sales Architecture Ltd

Find out how my services have helped Home Retail Group, Habitat, Arval & Fleetcor to save money, improve efficiencies and add value to their businesses.


Meet the founder of Sales Architecture.

A highly energetic consultant with an excellent reputation in delivering fast results to support business success. Comfortable working within a team or independently, with a positive can do attitude that ensures focus and delivery on key objectives.

Heather has worked in the Sales / Customer Service industry for over 25 years and now uses this wealth of experience to provide a variety of support services to businesses.

Heather Byford

Clients





The remit for Argos for Business was to create a structured development programme and establish a suitable training partner to work with in order to up skill their current Sales, Customer Service and Management teams.

  • Designed bespoke development programme, including competencies for 12 roles profiles
  • Coordinated training tender to agree supplier
  • Managed and implemented sales training programmes within budget
  • Delivered bespoke sales methodology tools, immersing new practices into the business by a number of activities
  • Coached sales teams in simulation training using actors as buyers, providing advice and feedback on performance to support learning journey
  • Engaged departments in the wider business to provide internal training sessions to support knowledge gaps
  • Supported development of intranet site to host material
  • Produced test content to assess knowledge levels
  • Made recommendations on reporting/analysis tools
  • Delivered regular presentations/workshops at employee forums
  • Established internal business support for training material

Arval required a training and development programme that would measure current knowledge and skills sets allowing individuals/managers to be aware of development requirements.

  • Designed and launched Sales Academy to 80 field/140 office employees. Increased CSI score in Market Knowledge (40%) and Effective Customer Service (35%)
  • Managed induction material and developmental resources
  • Built a user friendly intranet site to store documentation and training material
  • Established provision of training expertise of Arval products, services and commercial terms
  • Drive utilisation of the Sales Academy through leadership, communication and reporting tools
  • NVQ engagement to encourage personal development, coached over 100 employees through the learning journey
  • Promoted ICFM (an industry qualification)
  • Managed a complex tender for a bespoke structured selling methodology and create an exciting training programme that would re-establish the ‘Arval Way’
  • Created and delivered robust internal Train the Trainer and Coaching programmes
  • Developed a thorough communication and marketing strategy for the rollout to engage all levels
  • Designed and managed a two day sales simulation programme for field based teams, and phone simulations for internal teams, using external actors in Director and Buyer roles.
  • Used an online evaluation tool to monitor success and progress in the participants learning
  • Created eye catching branding/documentation



As part of a reorganisation within this client, the role for Sales Architecture was to provide support in implementing the new business strategy of moving to three P&L/client focussed business streams

  • Create detailed role profiles to support job profiling and recruitment process
  • Define the skills, experience and behaviours required in each role.
  • Complete an external remuneration survey in order to make recommendations
  • Identify and create proposed interview / assessment process
  • Co-ordinate and participate in the recruitment process
  • Build a robust, flexible and engaging induction programme
  • Carry out training needs analysis (TNA)
  • Work with external training supplier to create quality, focussed content
  • Produce process documents (RACI) to clearly define roles/responsibilities in teams
  • Create tender best practice content material

Initially this client required a "get on board now" approach in order to support their urgent recruitment needs. The contract extended to further business support within their customer service and sales functions.

  • Recruitment of new sales and marketing team to support growth of partnership business

  • Planning and delivery of assessment centre process

  • Write induction content for new starters

  • Create bespoke documents to enable marketing strategy focus with ROI measures

  • Produce new and engaging Partner Reviews with a win:win sales approach

  • Fact find current marketplace offerings in order to make recommendations for sales opportunities
  • Define end to end process of customer journey


Habitat engaged with Sales Architecture to undertake a review of a specific business area, with a remit to make recommendations on strategy for the future.

  • Health check of current business activity engaging with key personnel within the organisation
  • Creation of analysis documents to support findings
  • Provide recommendations on strategy to support growth
  • Produce analysis on competitors in marketplace
  • Propose an action plan to support the strategy approach

Testimonials



Danny Clenaghan

Managing Director at Argos For Business

From the outset, Heather worked hard to build good, strong professional relationships with my team, which enabled her to fulfil the contract with minimal support. In addition to providing The Academy for our sales team, Heather's efficiency enabled her to widen the scope of the project and incorporate content for our wider operational teams, creating a robust training platform for our business to work with.

I would highly recommend Heather in this capacity as her motivated and focused outlook, combined with her subject matter knowledge would add value to any organisation looking to implement a similar development programme.




Dave Mathews

Interim VP Marketing at Fleetcor UK

Heather acted as a one-person recruitment function for our Sales and Marketing divisions over a five month period. She liaised with agencies, interviewed and screened candidates, executed and interpreted psychometric and numeric tests, organised and delivered assessment centres and provided decision support for selection of hires. Throughout, she was extremely professional, efficient and effective. She has a naturally high energy level which means she packs a lot of delivery into every day. She demonstrates sound business judgement and engages well with people at all levels in the business. Often claimed, but in Heather’s case, actually true. I have no reservation in recommending her.




Emma Pearce

Head of Key Clients at Argos For Business

Argos for Business engaged with Sales Architecture to assist them with implementing a new end to end New Business and existing Sales Development team. They were brought in at the outset and assisted with designing the organisational structure, developing role profiles for all of the key sales roles, identifying sales recruitment agencies with the right understanding for our requirements, assessing and interviewing candidates for permanent employment. 
They also carried out an external pay and commission structure review, putting forward recommendations which were used to structure our remuneration package.



Working with all Argos for Business stakeholders and other members of the Argos Retail team Sales Architecture designed and co-ordinated the implementation of detailed induction plan, assisting with content and identifying ongoing business owners for the delivery to all new starters during the recruitment phase. Again working with the Argos for Business Leadership team Heather then designed a 12 month training programme predominately for the Sales team but also incorporating some core transferable skills that were beneficial to other functions within the business. Heather also assisted in the delivery of the training with another 3rd party agency.

Overall Sales Architecture have been key in the successful recruitment, induction and development of a critical sales team. They have the ability to seek engagement and work collaboratively to achieve objectives with all levels within a business by demonstrating professional and hardworking ethics as well as extensive sales and business experience.




Nicola Bacchus

Strategic Client Support Manager at Argos For Business

Heather initially joined our organisation to scope, plan and deliver a Sales Academy. I had the great pleasure of working with Heather for a 6 month period in which time she worked with our teams to establish a framework for our sales team that provided a sales methodology, training, workshops and an e learning platform. She did this through quickly building trusted relationships, managing stakeholders at all levels and ensuring she really understood our needs before making any decisions. Heather was consistently professional, personable, driven, hardworking and performed at the highest level of integrity.

It was clear that the framework that Heather helped us to build would benefit all of our teams across our business unit and we extended Heather's remit to customer service and other operational areas. 
Thanks to Heather we have the tools to manage and evolve our e learning platform and training programme ourselves since her time with us came to an end. 
I would highly recommend Heather to any organisation that wants to increase learning and develop people to increase both sales and service.




Lauren Rebecca Guy

Resourcing at Home Retail Group

Heather has supported a resourcing project within Home Retail Group for the last 6 months. Having worked with Heather I can honestly say she has been a pleasure to work with. She is dedicated, engaging and both her experience and knowledge has been key to successes we have had. She always provides clear insight and feedback, I would highly recommend Heather.




Simone Sargeant

Key Account Manager at Home Retail Group PLC

The sales academy that Heather and colleagues delivered was second to none. This was for two reasons. First- that I managed to increase my sales with her feedback almost immediately! And secondly that Heather was so personable, supportive and interactive throughout. I have attended several training courses, including some that are the most highly recommended in the country, and none have had such immediate, and continued results as the training programme delivered by Heather. What was particularly useful was how structured and detailed the course was- addressing every stage of the sales process and providing the opportunity to bin old bad habits and take on best practice. What distinguished this from other training courses was the fact that the core material was revisited several times in a fun and interesting way which meant that it was not lost, which can often be the case but instead became standard practice. Thank you Heather




Lyndon Stonier

National Head of Sales at Qi Van Systems Limited

Heather has designed, delivered and managed the most cost effective sales training program ever implemented in the Arval business. Through the Sales Academy and BRAVO programmes my Northern team became more effective in their roles and increased productivity - Heather is an excellent ambassador for the business, valued by everyone and a fantastic training manager.




Joel Lund

Head of Procurement & Shared Services at Arval

Heather worked for me as the Arval Sales Academy Manager for four years. In this time Heather wrote, launched and managed this structured program across the entire sales community. Her ability to manage multiple stakeholders and influence her peer group was the driving force behind the success of the Sales Academy at Arval.

In addition Heather was instrumental in the launch of two sales training programmes. Her ability to tailor the course to maximise individuals' learning and experiences through their engagement was excellent. Heather is extremely competent in self-management and would be a fantastic addition to any business


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07817 141 465