A traditional financial services firm was scheduled to close in three months time. The office had ten years worth of financial documents, a depressed sales staff and a failed office culture.
The top sales person at the corporation was a salesman who worked from home with a laptop with a VPN connection to the corporate private cloud.
The contract was to watch the phone and receive packages. The contractor confirmed with the regional manager a desperate plan to copy the top salesperson. The office was first cleared of out of date sales documents- a clear SEC violation. The remaining paperwork was scanned into the corporate headquarters private cloud. Each salesperson was given a private file drive. The files were governed by Federal Trade Commission privacy policies, to comply with regulations from the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
The sales team had been confined to selling products at the main office. The conference room was forbidding. The office was hidden off a high congested traffic road. People did not want to show up for a high pressure sales pitch in an uncomfortable, forbidding conference room after fighting through traffice, and then getting lost on the way to the office. This was before widespread driving navigation applications on cellphones. Just getting an appointment with a prospective client was a hard sales pitch.
After being untethered from the office and equipped with laptops that could securely load both all the sales documents and pamphlets and all of the customers’ information and contracts, the sales team was able to close enough business to keep the business not just afloat, but flourishing. The company did not close. Within six months they had moved to a new, more modern address. The company tripled its sales staff.
Each salesperson set appointments and then drove out to the customers’ preferred venue. People were hearing about the financial plans in the comfort of their own home. They were more willing to sign up for the offers. The current customers were more interested in increasing their investments. The sales staff made more money.
The higher end salesmen then decided to pursue institutional customers. They would pack their laptop and fly to a distant city and make a sale to a union fund, or business pension fund. They would fly out as soon as there was interest. Their velocity and commitment increased sales.
The company grew exponentially.