Overview
The Office Works was established in 2004, standing out amongst the crowd as a business that brings a unique, streamlined purchasing process to their customers – removing the inconvenience of using different suppliers and multiple vendors to meet their daily requirements.
Working out of their Uxbridge office, west London, they’ve brought a broad range of products and services to their UK-wide customer base since their beginning. This includes office products, workwear and PPE in addition to business services such as window cleaning, water coolers and waste management.
Since partnering with the UK dealer group, Office Friendly, they’ve worked diligently together since 2006, finding the very best solutions to upscale and accelerate business growth. The Office Works have set their future goals high in 2023, with a focus on prospecting and gaining new business. In December of 2022, they connected with Office Friendly’s very own training provider, Pioneer, putting cost-effective methods in place to help meet their goals. The Office Works’ Managing Director, Andrew Hudson, stated: “By working with Office Friendly, we have a second set of eyes on our business strategy – which has proven to be vital on numerous occasions. After meeting with the Pioneer team, we understood that we need to give our workforce the tools to ensure achieve our 2023 goals.”
The problem
The Office Works have spent the past 24 months focussed on nurturing, reviewing and retaining their current customer base with lots of success. However, this success has resulted in a lack of focus from their sales and sales support teams on prospecting and gaining new business.
Andrew said: “We wanted to invest in training with a two-pronged approach, as gaining new business requires action from both our sales and sales support teams. In addition to a lack of confidence from our sales staff when prospecting for new business, our sales support staff have been working with a lack of structure, not using their time effectively or not communicating efficiently in their working day.”
The Office Works recognised the significance of having a skilled workforce and most importantly, the positive impact that learning and development would have when working towards their 2023 business goals.
The solution
Pioneer’s James Barras got to work right away, delivering training sessions over two days at The Office Work’s Uxbridge office. He delivered training on new business cycle best practice to two members their sales team on day one, and a session on time management and soft skills to three of their sales support team on day two. This kickstarted an evolution in new belief of sales team and support staff. Establishing them a team that has the skillet to both retain their current customers and source new business.
Implementing a learning and development programme in your business increases the chance of meeting and even exceeding your organisational goals. It’s a cost-effective method, supercharging your workforce with the skills they need to help you work towards those all-important targets.
Amber Sweetman, Sales Operations Lead at The Office Works stated: “With busy workloads, our team has had little time in the past few years to press pause, put things in perspective and learn something new. Working with James and Office Friendly has given us a real boost, providing us with the skills and motivation to go after our goals.”
The results
The Office Works are reaping the rewards of their learning development programme, with their sales teams being more proactive on a day-to-day basis, splitting their focus between their current customer base and prospecting for new business.
Andrew said: “The effect of two days of training on our bottom line has been amazing. Our sales team are operating with a new confidence, as we’re seeing the number of new accounts increase by 18% since their training session with James in January. The entire customer-facing part of our organisation has shown their ability to manage their time effectively whilst being entirely self-sufficient.”
By investing in their people, The Office Works have been put on the right path to meet their 2023 goals.
Do you have skills gaps in your organisation? Get in touch with James Barras today to arrange a FREE organisational training needs analysis worth £200.