Maximizing Company Strengths Increases New Sales 1.8 Times!
Opens Door to 21 Trillion Yen Market!

In the July, August, and September issues of UNI-SIGHT, UNI-SQUARE introduces the winners of UNIVA AWARDS 2021. The winner featured in this September issue is UNIVA Gyro-n (hereafter Gyro-n)’s Haruka Ano. Working as an assistant manager in the sales division, she led a team tasked with developing a communication strategy for agent sales. She reached out across division and section boundaries to involve the development team and other sections, spurring rapid development of new features. Queries from agents increased threefold and sales increased 1.8 times year-on-year! Orders for big projects and from large local governments contributed enormously to Gyro-n’s growth. Here with introduce the challenges that Ano faced in opening doors to future opportunities.

Thoroughly Rethink the Problem, the Solution is to Escape from Personalization

Gyro-n’s primary product Gyro-n MEO, is a local SEO tool used by entrepreneurs developing outlets to optimize Google and Google Maps searches. For Gyro-n, a software as a service (SaaS) business, Gyro-n MEO is, first and foremost, a tool that increases sales to new customers. Achieving sales targets is imperative. As of January 2021, the number of agents handling this tool had, in recent years, reached nearly two hundred. The proportion of them regularly making requests for proposals was, however, stuck at around 10 percent of that total.

“Gyro-n was a small company with only 25 employees. Only four, including myself as leader, were the sales team. Since it was impossible to achieve sales targets without stronger approaches by our agents, we began with hearings to discuss in detail why they weren’t more active.”

The same term “agent” referred to agents working with companies with diverse needs. Some were food and beverage chains, others medical networks. Some were individual stores. The agents’ knowledge of local SEO was, moreover, fragmentary. How could members of the sales team possibly understand their individual problems and needs?

“We created sales tools including detailed protocols for hearings, designed to ensure the inclusion of elements needed to measure software literacy. Because the other three members of the sales team were all new, I participated personally in all discussions. That was how I was able to learn the different situations of our agents. It was hard work, but I was lucky to have to do it (laughs). Depersonalization (making sure that everyone had the same information) was a major step forward.”

Later, it was enough to offer proposals that satisfied specific needs. Realizing this led to the emergence of new problems for Ano.

New Problems Solved by Involving All Employees

Ano heard repeatedly that while agents understood the merits of the tool, they had no concrete image of how it would satisfy their prospects’ desire to grow sales and contribute to more effective selling. She observed that it was not enough for prospects to understand the merits of Gyro-n’s tool. Something more was needed.

“We scheduled lectures about the tool separately from business meetings. Later we added a trial period to allow prospects to develop clearer images of how they would use the software after installation. The lectures increased the volume of our communication with the agents and had an unexpected benefit, a much firmer grasp of agent needs. We learned, for example, that many agents were uneasy because they lacked expert knowledge about local SEO. They were very happy when we created presentation materials that agents could share as is with their clients.”

In addition, providing sales training and participation in agent presentations were included in the services offered to agents, contributing to an increase in requests for proposals. These, however, revealed an urgent new problem. Gyro-n’s tool lacked features required to satisfy agent needs.

“Agents’ job is to respond to end-user client needs, and they must be able to respond quickly. Incorporating agent needs in development criteria pushed the development team to accelerate the addition of new features to the tool. In 2021, there were more than 30 new releases adding large and small features to meet newly discovered client needs.”

Ano repeatedly mentioned her gratitude for the way in which transcending sectional boundaries and setting no limits to individuals’ responsibilities removed barriers to making lively communication an everyday habit.

“It was really important that the development team didn’t respond to difficult requests with ‘That’s impossible,’ responding instead with ‘How can we make that happen?’ ”

Ano says that Gyro-n strengths include the combination of high-level expertise with responsiveness to user requests. The development team and sales team work together to support the client’s success. Customer success minimizes loss of contracts. They also cooperate with the Customer Success division to respond quickly to customer queries. Everyone pulls together to reach the Gyro-n’s sales targets.

Opening the Door to a 21 Trillion Yen Market

Agent requests for proposals have increased threefold. New sales rose 1.8 times year-to-year. As of December 2021, new sales broke the previous year’s record, 1.28 million yen. Gyro-n is a SaaS business, and with customers ongoing use of its tools averaging 32 months, total sales were estimated at more than 40 million yen. Offering the agent training process to all prospects produced previously unimaginable results.

“We received orders on a scale never before achieved. The biggest was the result of our participating in a request for proposals from Gifu Prefecture and being selected as the best of the companies competing for the business.”

Ano built on growing experience and brought the thinking process full circle, developing a thorough grasp of Gifu Prefecture’s needs and moving rapidly to satisfy them. Gifu Prefecture wanted two things. One was expertise and a track record. To satisfy that demand, Gyro-n secured the cooperation of Takuya Nagayama, Japan’s first Google-business diamond product expert. Gifu’s second demand was for analysis of hard-to-collect Google Map data.

“None of the competing companies, including Gyro-n, had tools with this capability. This demand was truly difficult to satisfy. But I stubbornly insisted to every member of the development team that this new feature was essential, not only for this proposal but also for the future of Gyro-n. Notwithstanding that this request was still at the proposal stage and no order had been received, the development team made it their No. 1 priority. Every employee of Gyro-n was essential. Without each and every one of us, we would not have been selected as company of the Award. We were all very happy.

Gifu Prefecture’s choice of Gyro-n’s proposal and the subsequent order were particularly meaningful for Gyro-n, opening the way to compete in a local government market said to be worth 21 trillion yen. On June 18, 2022, Gyro-n distributed a press release with the news that Gyro-n had received an order from Gifu Prefecture related to data analytics for tourism-related activities. Requests for proposals from other local governments, whose needs, like Gifu Prefecture’s, require use of Google Maps, are expected to increase.

Finally, we asked Ano how it felt to be a UNIVA AWARDS 2021 winner.

“I was pleased that after the UNIVA AWARDS, my presentation was praised by everyone in the development team. I was also delighted to share the joy when my previous colleague Karen Yajima was also a winner. This is the first time in my life that I have received a trophy. It is now a cherished decoration at my home. Looking ahead, my goal is for our sales team to get closer to our users, better understand their needs, and see those needs reflected in our tools, growing sales for our company.”

Ano-san, congratulations! Your presentation at the FINAL CONTEST was so easy to understand. All of the judges praised it. We look forward to seeing what you and Gyro-n accomplish next.