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Ken Revenaugh, Oakwood Temporary Housing

  

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Company: Oakwood Temporary Housing, Los Angeles, CA
Company Description: Oakwood is the leading provider of furnished and serviced apartments worldwide, with presence in over 3,000 locations throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific. Over the last 50 years, Oakwood has focused its attention on exceeding the service expectations of its customers, both organizations providing accommodations for their employees and individuals seeking a temporary home.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Operations Leader of the Year

Nomination Title: Ken Revenaugh, Vice President, Sales Operations

    Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

        Wikipedia defines sales operations as “a set of business activities and
processes that help a sales organization run effectively, efficiently and in
support of business strategies and objectives.” Ken Revenaugh defines sales
operations via his on-target expertise, including developing effective messaging
and communications materials and creating and implementing sales and marketing
tools and processes that have made a significant impact at Oakwood.

        Oakwood launched our Sales Operations team by hiring Ken in 2008. He initiated a
sales transformation using a seven-stage model that included client research,
segmenting customers, improving the value proposition, instituting new sales
processes, determining best performer profiles and human capital requirements
and adding new incentive programs and transparent metrics to drive accountability.

        By early 2010, the playbook was in place, and Ken focused on driving performance
and developing skills in large account management while further developing the
sales force’s questioning abilities.

        Challenges

        - After the recession, when companies where beginning to feel comfortable about
change, we had 24 key customers up for renewal.

        - Oakwood served the federal government for nearly 50 years, but we had not
fully tapped this market.

        - We needed to bring the sales team together and create “one Oakwood” across
departments.

        Major Initiatives and Results

        - The sales team had clear and concise dashboards to measure performance, so 
the sales ops team helped other departments create simple scorecards.

        Result: This drove stronger partnership between sales and other departments.

        - Ken’s team led the “Client Retention Study,” which enlisted a third party to
interview and survey customers regarding satisfaction and loyalty. We learned
about some key gaps.

        Result: Closed gaps, retained customers and drove a 14% revenue increase for
strategic clients. This grew into a new large account management process used
across the enterprise.

        - 2010 began with a coaching event Ken spearheaded and designed -- the Detective
Workshop. This coaching created ah-ha moments and drove the sales team to spend
more time in the explore stage of the sales cycle.

        Result: By putting reps in an investigative mindset and introducing outside best
practices, Ken decoded tools and resources needed to gather, get and grow
business and focus on the Single Sales Objective. Sales closes deals 20% faster.

        - Aligning incentive goals was another target for 2010. Ken added a common Gross
Profit lever to both sales and operations plans.

        Result: His group designed calculators to make this easy to understand and
enhanced partnerships in the organization.

        - After an in-depth market study of the Government vertical, we chose target
agencies, developed a playbook, sized and hired a sales force, created messaging
and incentives and installed metrics.

        Result: A government-focused sales team growing at 30%+ a year.

        Overall Results

        - Revenues are growing steadily in the high teens. In 2010, forecasting reached
the goal of +/-2% accuracy; 2011 is on track to be a record year.

        - Training Magazine named Oakwood to its Top 125 and selected the Hardwiring
Sales Training for Business Results program that Ken designed a best practice.

    List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

        SAVO Pioneer Award for demonstrating vision, leadership and stewardship in Sales
Enablement

        http://blog.savogroup.com/2010/10/sales-enablement-pioneers/

        Top 125 Best Practice submission, Hardwiring Sales Training for Business
Results, has been chosen to receive a Best Practice Award. Training Magazine.

        http://www.trainingmag.com/article/training-magazine-names-2011-training-top-125-winners

    Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:

        Ken Revenaugh is Vice President, Sales Operations of Oakwood Temporary
Housing. He built out the sales operations function and lead the implementation of a
sales and marketing transformation that resulted in a sustainable trend of 20%
year-over-year growth and guarantees Oakwood’s continued position as the
industry leader in temporary housing.

        He is known for designing, developing and implementing analytics, tools and
processes that drive maximum sales performance. Prior to joining Oakwood,
Revenaugh instituted plans that reversed four years of steadily declining
revenues at Exhibitgroup/Giltspur. During his tenure at FedEx (then Kinko’s), he
helped drive record levels of revenues, profits and market share.