Bruce Van Fleet Director of Client Sales Development

I've headed three national sales teams - for Strategic Mortgage Services, Radian and Triad Guaranty. So you might wonder, what is a senior sales executive doing at a marketing agency? The fact is, sales and marketing are joined at the hip. It's hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. And it's hard to be successful if you don't have strength in both areas. You can have the best marketing materials in the world - and I would have to say The Bloom Agency produces world-class marketing materials - but you still need solid sales processes and people.

Working with our clients' business development and sales processes is my main function at Bloom. In some cases our clients don't have dedicated salespeople - a common situation in any kind of professional services firm, for example. The people who provide the professional services are also responsible for business development. I work with those folks individually, to help them be both comfortable and effective in the sales role.

Some of our clients do have a dedicated sales force. I work with them as a team or individually. Based on what I learn about their procedures, obstacles, and business goals, we design incentive programs, conduct training programs, offer individual coaching, and make sure that the team has the right marketing tools to support their efforts.

Business development is definitely a team sport, and performance is best when expectations are high and success is shared. One of our goals with every client is to help them create a culture in which employees in all areas are enthusiastic ambassadors and advocates for their organization, and helping to grow their business.

Throughout my career I've been impressed by how much can be accomplished through partnerships between organizations. I define partnership as a relationship in which both parties have a stake in each other's future. By this definition, The Bloom Agency is a true partner of our clients.

The sales force of one of our clients was not performing up to expectations. I was called in to assess and assist. I met with the whole group at their quarterly meeting, having introduced myself to each salesperson in individual telephone conversations earlier. In our sessions together I facilitated discussions that enabled the group to trust each other more than they had in the past, and to appreciate each other’s strengths. As is not uncommon, no one salesperson excelled at all the skills needed to land and manage an account, but this group was able to see that by teaming up and sharing certain responsibilities much greater success at getting and keeping customers would be possible. As is also fairly common, these people were skeptical about what could come of the meeting, and more or less expected that even though they ventured good ideas, nothing would change as a result.

But out of that session, quite a few things did happen. The sales force was restructured, at our recommendation, based on the company’s current needs and their resources, both financial and human. The compensation and incentive system was revised, along the lines we recommended, to reward team effort. I engaged in individual coaching with some of the team members. And Janet and Linda created sales collateral, trade show materials and case studies geared to the product lines the company is emphasizing now - support the sales team needed and asked for.

I love all the activities associated with sales training – listening, coaching, keeping a good flow of communications going, and making sure that the structure, process, compensation and sales materials all support the goals of the organization. Most of all I love to see the results of those activities - which almost always begin to occur very quickly.