RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the premier provider of security, risk and compliance management solutions for business acceleration. RSA helps the world’s leading organizations solve their most complex and sensitive security challenges. These challenges include managing organizational risk, safeguarding mobile access and collaboration, proving compliance, and securing virtual and cloud environments. RSA brings visibility and trust to millions of user identities, the transactions that they perform and the data that is generated.
As RSA acquired new companies and new technologies, implementing and maintaining a consistent sales plan and message was a challenge. Recruiters lacked the methodology necessary to identify the right sales representatives. Sales teams were focusing on price rather than value and as a result, they weren’t selling the whole portfolio of products. RSA suffered from the problem that plagues so many organizations, a misalignment between sales and marketing. Overall, they needed a consistent message and strong people to deliver that message.
“The great thing about RSA is we had really great people on board. We had to do a transformational event to up-level the current players who were on the team, but we also had to do a lot of outside recruiting. We had to go out and get the not-in-play players,” said Mark Thurmond, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales.
RSA utilized a full sales lifecycle methodology through Command of the Talent® and Command of the Message®. The engagement included extensive discovery and adoption practices, to help RSA maximize its people and its message. Command of the Talent® provided a standard set of tools to identify the ideal sales representative. Command of the Message® provided RSA with consistent content to use in the marketplace.
RSA’s return on investment was immediate. “Forty-five days after we did our first big Command of the Message® engagement, we actually took the tools, the language, and the inspection processes we learned and applied them to a deal that was over $3.5 million dollars. We changed our sales approach. We changed the way we were positioning the solution. We actually closed the deal,” said Thurmond.
After working with the Command of the Message® methodology, multiple product deals doubled, and the average deal size increased. Deals ranging from $250,000 to $500,000 were up 30% in the first quarter after implementation. RSA closed more million-dollar-plus deals in that quarter than they ever had. A key part to that success was having the right people in place. “The talent we have brought in, based on the Command of the Talent® criteria, has really allowed us to take this business to the next level,” said Thurmond.