Common Challenges to Sales Growth

While there are proven methods for achieving sales growth (see previous post), there are still many challenges associated with increasing sales revenue.

Here's a list of common obstacles:

• Fewer available resources for attracting new customers or retaining current ones
  
• Shrinking customer base – even if we do an excellent job taking care of existing customers, over time our customer base will shrink! Like it or not, customer needs change; in addition, some of our customers will close or sell their businesses, and others will move to another region.
  
• Heightened competition
  
• Customer’s spending less
  
• Fewer referrals
  
• Longer buying cycles / more deliberate decision-making

Proactive Business Development: Activity v. Results

If you would like to grow your business or sales territory this year, try making a true commitment to the proactive components of your business development plan.

We all know that growing a business or sales territory is hard work, especially in more challenging economic times when referrals and leads are less plentiful, customers are spending less and the competition is tougher.

A good start is to create an annualized business development plan. But simply crafting the plan isn’t enough! We must commit to the plan as well as to the proactive components of the plan.

Honest Self Assessment
It’s important to realize that business development consists of both reactive and proactive elements. Running advertisements, updating a web site, posting blog entries, distributing newsletters or attending networking events might all be parts of the plan, but once these action steps are taken we often find ourselves in a reactive position – that is, waiting for someone to call.

These reactive action steps are the “easy” components of business development.

The more difficult aspects of business development include proactively working to make things happen. These activities include sending follow-up emails or letters suggesting next steps, leaving proactive voice-mail messages, making follow-up calls and scheduling meetings.

Research, pre-call planning and some imaginative thinking are also part of the mix, but the “hard” part of business development is staying the course. Statistics indicate that most things “happen” after someone (a seller) completes five or more contacts with a prospect. But most “sellers” make fewer than three approach calls – thus the challenge most of us face when trying to make things happen.

Setting goals and monitoring results are the best methods of ensuring success, and now is the time to get started for 2010.

• The first step is to identify the number of new customers or clients you’d like to add each month or each quarter
  
• Using a reverse funnel approach, the next step is to estimate the number of appointments, lunches or meetings you’ll need to conduct in order to achieve the new customer goal
  
• Step three is to determine the number of prospects you’ll need to contact (and how many times) in order to schedule the desired number of meetings
  
• Now the real work begins… make the calls and measure the results

If appointments or meetings seem hard to come by, then review your metrics as well as your message.

Growing a business or sales territory is not easy work. If you are able to achieve sufficient growth in a primarily reactive way – advertising, referrals, and so on – then you’re among the fortunate. For the rest of us, committing to proactive business development is the best approach.

Performance Management - Balancing the Rear-view Mirror

A strategically balanced performance management plan is a key component of effective sales management. The most successful approach not only enables sales managers to identify opportunities for team improvement based on analyzing past activities and results, but to also identify preemptive action steps and strategies that can impact future results.

Balancing the Rear View Mirror
Managers who place all or too much focus on analyzing past performance analytics and then initiating improvement plans after-the-fact miss the opportunity to salvage what otherwise might be a sub-standard month, quarter or trimester.

Circumstances and competitive offerings within the marketplace are constantly changing. While the practice of reviewing past performance and using the data as part of a performance improvement plan is necessary, this “rear-view-mirror” approach can be costly in terms of lost opportunities if it encompasses ones entire sales management approach.

While there are different ways to accomplish a more balanced approach or sales management system, here’s a well-tested example consisting of five key components:

1. Team meetings - for teambuilding and team motivation; best if scheduled regularly on a "same time same channel" basis. Must be well-planned with a group-level agenda
2. Individual strategy sessions - also scheduled regularly; based on your sales process and model, the same topics should be discussed each time, such as territory management plan, key-account plan, pipeline, activity plan, etc.
3. Field support & team selling - regularly scheduled with each Rep; an ideal opportunity to lead by example, build relationships with key customers (key in times of transition!), stay current on market conditions and gather data or input for your team and individual meeting agendas
4. Proactive "impromptu" interaction - similar to Hewlett Packard's well-known practice of MBWA (Management by Walking Around); can be done in a variety of ways, such as email, voice mail, telephone, face-to-face (at the water cooler...) depending upon your logisitc structure. These interactions must be made in a spirit of being "interested" or "supportive" rather than "I'm checking up on you..."
5. Proactive to-do list - on which each Rep has a slot every week, and the manager has a proactive reason to interact with each Rep based on issues of the day, plans made during strategy sessions or team selling days, etc.

Finally, an organizational system - either electronic or in three-ring-binder style for field-based managers - must be created and maintained in order to implement this system. For additional information, please refer to paulcharles.com.

Key Sales Team Needs

Every sales team needs a leader - a Sales Manager or District Manager or someone who can both manage the selling process and lead the team in a consistent fashion - day after day, week after week, month after month.

This concept is very similar to one the basic principles of marketing: frequency. It is a well-known and accepted fact that a marketing message must be "heard" multiple times by prospective customers if a marketer is to gain their attention, interest, acceptance and buy-in.

The same holds true for those managing sales teams. To maximize results, to gain buy-in and acceptance of ideas and desired behaviors, the "message" must be repeated and reinforced on a regular and consistent basis.

Just like in the sales world, persistence is a key component of sales management.

Which Half of Your Sales or Management Effort is Working?

John Wanamaker once said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half!"

This is, of course, the reason frequency is such an important element of marketing. It is also an important element of selling and of sales management. We must be diligent in our efforts to maintain a proactive and persistent posture when selling, and we must do the same when engaged in sales management - which many believe is simply a "higher level of selling."

If we fail to interact with our customers, pospects or sales people with sufficient frequency, and if we fail to reaffirm the value associated with our products, services and our orgnaizations as well as our personal value, then we will most likely fail as sales people or sales managers.

What Are You (Really) Selling?

It is every sales person’s job to distinguish his or her products and services from those offered by the competition. And in a business world crowded with competitive offerings, an attempt to accomplish this by selling features and price most often fails.

BMW makes cars, but they talk about (sell) performance and prestige! Volvo sells safety. What are you selling?

Facing the challenges of buyers who focus on price or who "commoditize" our products and services is difficult. Success can only be achieved by selling benefits and solutions.

Proactive Business Development

Over the past several years we have found that many people are more comfortable taking a reactive approach to business development. While it is clearly easier and preferable if prospects come to us, either by referral, word of mouth or as a result of advertisments, it is also difficult to manage a process in which we take a primarily reactive role.

It is best, therefore, to become proactive in at least some portion of your business development effort. You'll be happy you did, especially if the referrals or responses to your ads begin to diminish!

Selling to the Sales Force

Yesterday's post referenced the benefit of "hope" and how important an element hope can become in difficult economic times.

Taking the thought a step further, as part of a well-executed motivational plan it is equally important for business owners and managers to remind the sales staff of the positive aspects of their professional lives. Thus today's post: Selling to the Sales Force!

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One way to help your sales force maximize opportunities, especially during economic downturns, is to "sell" them on the idea that the job can be done!

Some might think that the idea of “selling” to the sales force is like preaching to the choir. But people need encouragement. In addition, adults learn through spaced repetition with immediate feedback.

So if we, as managers or business owners, don’t continually reaffirm the true message with our sales people, how can we be sure that they are expressing it properly? How can we be sure they haven’t forgotten?

Or that they haven’t succumbed to the fears and doubts that are forced upon them each day in a seemingly hostile, uncaring marketplace?

If we don’t continually reaffirm the basics of the discipline, how can we be sure they are properly applying their skills?

Successful “selling” is most often a function of consistent and persistent communication. Or, as eighteenth-century author and statesman Samuel Johnson phrased it, "People more frequently require to be reminded rather than informed."

Consider the process through which our customers and prospects learn about us – our sales force stays in regular contact, assesses current situations, and then reiterates the features, advantages and benefits that are associated with thesolutions we offer. If it is determined that one of our valued customers is considering a competitor’s proposal, then our sales team works hard to remind them of the benefits associated with our organization - the intangibles as well as our products and services.

And so too is that the case with our sales people. We must stay in regular contact (sales meetings, field-support, and strategy sessions), assess current situations (attitude, sales funnel or pipeline, activity levels, strategies, etc.) and advise/coach them on how they might best proceed.

And when they tell us about the challenges of the marketplace, they need to be reminded of the true value that exists within our organization; the value of products and services and the real differentiators our organization brings to the table.

Once-a-year performance reviews or occasional pep-talks won’t suffice, nor will a sporadic hit-or-miss approach to training and strategic planning.

Sell to your sales force on a regular basis and they will sell more in return.

The Benefit of Hope

Can you find a way to sell the benefit of hope?

The practice might very well provide you with a significant advantage, especially in today's tough economy.

You may be familiar with the axiom, "Features tell, but benefits sell." If so, then you know it simply means that, when involved in selling, we should avoid the trap of talking about or promoting "features" in favor of identifying and promoting the benefits that are relevant to our audience.

So, you may be wondering, how does the benefit of "hope" fit into the picture? Like many things in life, this concept is simple but not easy.

The key is to learn enough about our audience − their challenges and goals − so that we can identify what might provide them with hope. This is not easy work. It requires effective probing and (of all things!) listening skills, and it requires the use of both common sense and imagination. But we must determine how our product or service can help them improve their overall position going forward. We must figure out how to help them become hopeful going forward into what, by all expectations, will be a difficult economic year. And then we must share the hope and good news interms of benefits.

For example, if you sell consulting services, how will your customers benefit from those services? Are they hoping to reduce head count, hiring or training costs? Are they looking for ways to save time? Can your consulting services help? If so, howcan this best be quantified and presented?

If you sell technology or office equipment, how might your customers benefit? Are they working to enhance productivity or lower operating costs? If so, how can your solutions help them achieve these goals or objectives in 2009?

In other words, instead of worrying about reduced budgets, lower spending limits or total cutbacks, the mission is to work harder at identifying and presenting the most relevant solutions − solutions that will give your customers hope in their ability to achieve their objectives or deal with their challenges.

Closer to Home
Selling takes place at many levels. While many of us sell products and services to our customers, business owners or managers must also "sell" concepts, policies and procedures to staff members every day. Regardless of the venue, the most successful sellers are those who are able to identify and promote the "right" benefits.

So when interacting with employees − often referred to as "internal" customers − our mission this year is to promote the benefit of hope.

Hope for a secure future; hope and belief in their ability to achieve success despite the gloom-and-doom presented each day in the news.

If the economy is, at least to some degree, a function of consumer confidence and attitude, then let's become the catalysts for a more hopeful perspective.

Annualized Business Development Plan

Do you have an annualized business development plan? If not, read on because having such a plan can make the difference between success and failure or between a good year and a great one!

First let's define the terms. An annualized plan is simply a schedule of which activities will be done and at what time. Plotting this information by month allows you to take advantage of any seasonal opportunities, and also to determine overall time and cost commitments. Business development is a multi-faceted practice that keeps your business moving ahead. It consists of various components, including:

• Promoting your organization to develop a presence in your marketplace
• Identifying new business opportunities with known and unknown prospects
• Generating new business from prospects
• Generating new or incremental business from clients
• Business retention
  

A close review of this list reveals three very important facts. First is the fact that our customers and clients are also prospects for new or incremental business.

Second, there is a big difference between "identifying" business opportunities and "generating" them. While the former might, at times, be easier to accomplish, both activities are essential. Successful business development, therefore, requires a combination of marketing and selling skills. Other requirements include time management, organizational skills and a positive attitude.

The third key fact, simply stated, is "one easy way to get business is to not lose business!" Customer retention is an important element of every business development plan, because any lost business must be made-up if we are to achieve our overall goal.

Now that we've identified the basics, you can review a simple five-step plan on our web site .