Entries Tagged 'Sales' ↓

We have several teams in our company. Each team leader is responsible for bringing in business for their team. Each team does its own lead follow up. Most of us don’t put much information about sales activity down on paper. Every once in awhile we cross paths with the same leads. Last week we had a discussion about where everybody was, and what to expect for the rest of the year. Some people didn’t have as much in their forecasts as we all expected. I think things have to improve, but I’m not sure how to do it. If we don’t get more organized, the second half of this year could be brutal.

Insuring tools are in place so that everyone can share and support everyone else would be a good next step. Building a process to strategically pick and pursue accounts would also be helpful. Documenting what’s going on, who’s doing what, will cut down on surprises.

The good news is that this company has already built teams and assigned responsibilities for sales. Those are important first steps in building a sales driven company. But it’s going to take organization and intention to hit goals going forward. Step in with a sales management plan to get things whipped into shape.

Work backwards from the outcomes – sales, to the inputs – sales inquiries, initial introductions to decision makers, information gathering, pricing discussions, proposals confirming offers. Do the math: how much activity is required overall in order to hit the desired number of closes.

For example, let’s say on average 10 inquiries lead to 7 introductions to decision makers, and 5 leads that complete an information gathering process. After 4 pricing discussions, 3 companies accept proposals, and 1 closes. So it takes 10 leads, 7 decision maker introductions, 5 at the information gathering stage, 4 discussing prices, and 3 proposals to get 1 sale. Multiply by the total number of sales needed. If the goal is 10 sales, it will take 100 leads, 70 decision maker contacts, 50 prospects providing information, 40 pricing discussions and 30 proposals.

Create specific individual and team goals. Put them in writing. Make sure individual goals add up to, or exceed, the total of what’s needed at each stage to hit the company’s overall sales goal.

Track individual activity in excel, or in a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Make reporting on activity mandatory. Spend some time on analysis. Figure out who’s on track, who needs help, at which stage.

Develop best practices. Look at who’s getting the highest and fastest conversion rates at each stage. Discuss what everyone can do to replicate those results.

Most sales people report that 30%+ of the leads that close come from their own efforts, and another 30% – 40% of closes probably come indirectly from their prospecting efforts. In other words, sales people are most invested in the leads they generate.

How can you help sales people generate more leads? Make a list of demographics that separate out the company’s targets from the universe in general. Look for a database that identifies individuals or companies by those demographics. Decide how to carve up the database so that people aren’t stepping on each other’s toes.

Agree on a standard approach process. Do the people on the teams send out a letter, followed up by a phone call? Do they go to trade shows to pick up leads? How about connecting with targets via LinkedIn? Whatever is agreed, make each person responsible for his or her own approach. Remember, commitment to follow up is generally greater if people work to get the lead.

Keep a database of all active prospects, indicating who in the company is in charge of the lead. If a lead surfaces that isn’t assigned, add it to the list, give it to someone, track the follow through. If leads in the database are sitting dormant, re-assign them to see if mixing things up can get them moving.

Looking for a good book? Topgrading For Sales: World-Class Methods to Interview, Hire, and Coach Top Sales Representatives, by Bradford Smart and Greg Alexander.

pdf version

We squeaked by with sales in April and May, and I don’t want to be here again. Had we not closed a couple pieces of business, it would have been a different, and difficult story. We need to be confidently bringing in business, but I don’t have a good handle on which leads to prioritize, or how much I need to be doing in order to close what we want to close.

For many business owners it’s frustrating to be working so hard, only to see inconsistent results. This certainly isn’t the go-go economy of pre-2008. And that means that business owners are going to have to be on top of their game, better than ever at forecasting, closing more than their fair share, and making sure they’re closing the right kind of business. It’s not easy, but it is do-able.

Start by doing a reality check on what you’ve set as goals. Are you crystal clear about what has to happen each and every month. Is there a written game plan that you and everyone else in the organization can follow?

Decide how many sales have to happen each month. Check on loss ratios on existing business, and be sure to add in enough new sales to close the gap on losses in addition to getting growth. A good average growth rate, net of losses, is in the range of 10% – 15%, which should put you on track to grow faster than inflation.

Set your goals 15% – 25% higher than necessary. This may seem really high, if you’re not already closing enough business. However under planning for what you need is likely to keep you in a cycle of shortfalls. Instead, get aggressive about over-achieving, rather than living with under-achieving sales.

Make a list of questions to ask every prospect. Start with the first encounter. Questions for the prospect can be woven into a script, and asked on every sales call. Keep notes on how prospects answer, and compare results down the road when you know how closed, and who didn’t.

What questions would help your sales and service people know if someone is a legitimate prospect? Make a list of your best customers. Figure out what attributes they have in common. Create a list of questions that would lead to finding out if other prospects have those same attributes.

It may take a little time to come up with a list of questions to ask prospects. And it can sometimes seem like there’s not enough time to work on making a list. However, think about the amount of time that’s been wasted chasing prospects that didn’t pan out, or that turned into lousy customers. Focusing early on, on the right prospects, could save a lot of time and energy down the line.

Take a look at your closing ratios historically. How may prospects do you have to be talking to at one time, in order to get a sale? How long does it take to close a piece of business, from the time you first discuss an opportunity with a prospect, until you get a contract signed and check in hand?

You may find that there’s some pipeline building to do. Often a company isn’t closing enough business because they’re not talking to enough of the right prospects. That makes it a pipeline filling problem, rather than a closing problem.

Look at the resources you have available to commit to accomplishing the company’s sales goals. Do you have enough prospecting activity? Are there enough leads in the pipeline? Who else in the company can work on adding leads to the pipeline? Is it time to hire someone additional to help move sales forward?

Often business owners hesitate to commit additional resources to sales and marketing. They fear that they cannot afford the cost. However, if sales are slow, waiting to expand the team and increase results tends to keep the company in a shortfall situation.

Looking for a good book? Selling in a Recession: 21 Tips and Strategies for Finding New Business in a Tough Economy, or Sales Prospecting Secrets, Sales Motivation, Negotiating Tips, and More to Increase Sales, by Matthew Aaron.

______________________________________

Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., www.StrategyLeaders.com, a business consulting firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurial firms grow. She can be reached by phone at 877-238-3535. Do you have a question for Andi?  Please send it to her, via e-mail at AskAndi@StrategyLeaders.com or by mail to Andi Gray, Strategy Leaders Inc., 5 Crossways, Chappaqua, NY 10514. Visit www.AskAndi.com for an entire library of Ask Andi articles.

pdf version

I think our field guys could help us with leads, but I’m not sure how to go about getting them involved. They see clients all day long, and I’m sure there are opportunities for us to make proposals. Any suggestions?

Field staff, the eyes and ears on the ground for most companies. It’s crucial that they have good connections with clients, and that clients see them as helpful. Figuring out how to track the leads,  recognize, and reward results can be challenging. It’s important to make sure that the rules are clear as to what’s appropriate, and where to draw the line. Set a goal to add to this year’s top and bottom line by increasing the depth of what your company offers to your existing clients.

Often we focus on having field people be expert at what they do. It’s worth it to spend time building observation and communication skills as well. Field staff are more involved with meeting customer needs than probably anyone else in your company. They can provide valuable information, and form bonds with customers.

Spend time observing how well people in the field communicate. Are they clear and fact based? Do they take notes? Do they have a good follow up routine? Are they polite, respectful, positive?

On the job it’s easy to get caught up in the task of the moment. Fix this, repair that. It’s important to remember why someone is out on a service call – because a human being had a problem / request that they wanted addressed. Solving that need means more than just doing what needs to be done. Communicate effectively – what was done, why the need arose, what else to consider.

Train your field staff to reach beyond the task. Locate the key contact for the job, inform that person of when the team arrived, what’s been accomplished, any follow up actions that are needed, when they’re leaving. Keep this up, and you’re well on your way to creating lasting relationships with the people who request your services and pay your bills.

Provide a daily tracking log for your people to fill out and send back to the office. Keep a record of who’s sending in what kinds of requests. Be sure that the log gets referred to the proper person to follow up for additional sales opportunity.

Identify who are your best players in the game of identifying additional needs. Talk in staff meetings about what they’re doing. Talk as a group about what everyone else can do to model their behaviors.

One question that may come up is, “If I’m identifying leads, will I get paid for them?”. There are a couple ways to go with this question. The first answer is that by identifying leads, field crews are doing what they can to insure there’s future work for them to do. Staying employed and busy is a key concern in today’s economy, and it’s everyone’s job to pitch in to make that happen.

If you want to go further, consider a reward and recognition program. You can track leads, have an award for the leader of the month. You can assign points based on the quality and quantity of work produced, and give people rewards in relation to the point system.

Make sure everyone understands what kinds of work leads are appropriate, and what to avoid. Steer clear of the mentality that any work is good work. Train your people to look for quality over quantity in order to best serve your customers’ needs.

Make it clear that you’re not looking for your field personnel to become sales people. If someone in the field is especially interested in moving into sales, that’s an entirely different conversation to be had. In the meantime, point out that bringing in leads is only the door opener to additional business opportunities.

Building a program around improving what a company does to serve a customer can result in top and bottom line revenue for your company. Add up the number of current customers you have, and how much revenue you get from them in a typical year. Set a goal to increase that by being more proactive in the field. Challenge yourself and your employees to hit that goal.

Looking for a good book? Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, by Leonardo Inghilleri, Micah Solomon, Horst Schulze.

______________________________________

Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., www.StrategyLeaders.com, a business consulting firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurial firms grow. She can be reached by phone at 877-238-3535. Do you have a question for Andi?  Please send it to her, via e-mail at AskAndi@StrategyLeaders.com or by mail to Andi Gray, Strategy Leaders Inc., 5 Crossways, Chappaqua, NY 10514. Visit www.AskAndi.com for an entire library of Ask Andi articles.

pdf version

We just got in some bad news. A major contract has been cancelled. The first 5 minutes, all I could think about was that we’d just lost 25% of our revenue for the year – through no fault of our own, it’s a government program that’s going away because of all of the cost cutting. Then I took a step back and started breathing again, and decided I need to figure out how to turn this lemon into lemonade.

Here’s one more sign of the continuing uncertainty in our economy, and the challenges many businesses are going through. This company was looking forward to a great year, that now might be mediocre at best. This owner is also smart to quickly re-focus on how to move past the loss. In times like these, flexibility, speed of response and attention to detail will all contribute to success.

Start by pulling out the contract. What fees are at risk. Establish an invoice for all efforts expended to date. Check on outstanding amounts due and put lots of effort into collecting outstanding monies now. If additional work is due, use that as leverage to collect what’s owed.

Identify cost cuts that will have to be made if the revenue cannot be replaced. Check if vendor cancellation penalties come into play. Send out cancellation notices immediately.

Stack rank staff, based on skill, essential fit to the company, fit to projects other than this contract. Notify staff immediately of what’s happened, and that everything possible is being done to find alternate work, but that at the moment, it looks as if certain jobs will be terminated by a specific date.

Then focus on sales. The private sector is picking up. This may be a bad news / good news opportunity to pick up other work. Often government contracts come in big lumps, but with much lower profit margins, so it may be possible to go out and sell smaller private sector contracts and make up the margin with less volume.

Decide if there are enough sales resources on board to sell what is needed to close the gap. If not, immediately start a sales personnel search. Consider hiring a search firm to quickly cover more ground.

In the meantime bring existing sales and marketing people together. Brainstorm what to do to bring on more business. Look for opportunities within existing clients. Reach out to new client sectors as well.

Consider the possibility of acquisition to make up the volume. After the couple years we’ve all been through, more than one business owner is ready to throw in the towel. Put together a list of what you’d like to acquire: types of business, personnel, sales volume, types of contracts, additional clients to sell your products or services to, other products or services to sell to your current clients, etc.

It may be possible to pick up one or more companies that have been operating at or below breakeven for too long – the smaller the company the more likely it has struggled to make money. Consider purchasing their customer list, acquiring contracts, picking up sales and service related personnel. Be careful about assuming liability for their losses and outstanding obligations.

Reach out everywhere. Make sure everyone knows that you’re looking to buy another company, or two. Use the yellow pages, or trade association membership rosters to build target acquisition lists. Send out confidential introduction letters to the owners. Follow letters up with a phone call. This is just like any other type of sales: you’ll probably get a lot of rejection, and some interest that needs to be developed.

Whatever else happens, use this wake up call as an opportunity to move your company forward. Accept the challenge for what it is: time to get moving on expanding your customer list and reducing reliance on a big volume client. Create a picture of what your business will look like when it gets over this hump, and then work like the dickens to get there.

Looking for a good book? Fast Growth: How to Attain it, How to Sustain It, by Laurence G. Weinzimmer.

______________________________________

Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., www.StrategyLeaders.com, a business consulting firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurial firms grow. She can be reached by phone at 877-238-3535. Do you have a question for Andi?  Please send it to her, via e-mail at AskAndi@StrategyLeaders.com or by mail to Andi Gray, Strategy Leaders Inc., 5 Crossways, Chappaqua, NY 10514. Visit www.AskAndi.com for an entire library of Ask Andi articles.

pdf version

I’ve asked a few support people to be more involved in developing one of our big customers. It was getting to be a lot to manage on my own. Now I find my employees aren’t prioritizing client’s new business opportunities. They keep saying they’re too busy. What should I do?

Congrats on making a move to expand your sales team! Know that the transition from account support to growing sales opportunities is a big transition. Concept and executing are two different things; it takes practice to develop skills. Your staff probably also needs people to delegate to, just as you’re delegating to them. Make sure your people are signed onto the responsibility of new business development.

Handling a client’s requests for existing projects is very different from the socializing and concept meetings that go with new opportunity development. Here are some tools to organize new business activities:

• account contact list (existing and potential) – name, title, role, responsibility
• key player list – those most likely to be in charge of new business development
• current and pending projects list
• contact / meeting plan: monthly, quarterly or semi-annually, depending on how fast things change for each key contact, to gather information on what’s coming up
• goals for the number of new projects to pick up in the coming months
• game plan for getting new projects: meetings, networking, bids, etc. within the account

Review the tools with your newly minted account managers to be sure they understand what’s involved. Schedule brief weekly timeslots to check in on your staff’s progress.

It may be that you’re backing out of the transition process too quickly. Meeting with clients to deliver on work is very different from pursuing new opportunities. Concept meetings are much more intangible, and someone who’s been focused on projects and due dates may not even notice the opportunities that are swirling around them.

Have your account managers set up and host transition meetings with the client’s key contacts. Help them prepare by asking what they know / want to know regarding new projects. Emphasize the importance of listening, rather than talking, in account development meetings.

If you think your account managers will fall into their old pattern of reporting on what they’re working on, rather than finding out what’s coming up, help them build a list of questions to ask the client:

• What kinds of projects are the horizon?
• Who else might be involved in those projects?
• What kind of help might you need from us?
• What’s the likely timing?

Give your account managers a questionnaire to fill out, to help them make the transition from talking to listening and information gathering.

As you delegate new business development to people 1 level down, they may need to push some of their work down. Most people today have a full plate of assignments. Adding something new means something else has to come off. The good news is that pushing work down in the organization, and focusing higher level resources on selling, are two of the most effective ways to grow sales and profitability.

Finally, check in with your managers to be sure they want to learn about how to chase new business within existing accounts. Make sure your managers understand that learning to sell and expand existing accounts is a growth track for them, and one of the most important development opportunities they could take on. If they’re not interested, find out why, and make it clear that without learning how to develop new business they will be limiting their career and their earnings.

Looking for a good book? The Seven Keys to Managing Strategic Accounts, by Sallie Sherman, Joseph Sperry, Samuel Reese.

______________________________________

Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., www.StrategyLeaders.com, a business consulting firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurial firms grow. She can be reached by phone at 877-238-3535. Do you have a question for Andi?  Please send it to her, via e-mail at AskAndi@StrategyLeaders.com or by mail to Andi Gray, Strategy Leaders Inc., 5 Crossways, Chappaqua, NY 10514. Visit www.AskAndi.com for an entire library of Ask Andi articles.

pdf version

The good news we’re going to have a whole bunch of new clients and work in the next few months. I’ve heard you say that sometimes a business can take on too much at once. It will be hard to turn down any opportunity, since things have been pretty lean for us recently. Why do you suggest being careful? and what should we do if all of the opportunities we’ve been chasing finally show up?

Too much business can be as deadly as too little. It seems hard to turn down opportunity after all the work to open new doors, but that may be the prescription for a successful outcome. The right amount of growth can lead to greater long term profits, happier employees, and an owner committed to building the business.

Recovery sales is what happens at the bottom of a recession. Businesses throw every resource they have at sales and marketing. Smart owners know that they’re going to have to grab market share in order to protect and grow revenue.

At the same time, other companies are doing the same. The landscape gets much more competitive, and deals get struck that owners wouldn’t think about making in more robust economies. Profits drop in favor of discounts, margins get shaved, people work overtime to deliver faster in order to insure that cash flow comes in.

As the economy begins to heat up, old proposals, written at the bottom of the economic slow down, start turning into business. Buyers press for expedited services so that they can ramp up faster – while at the same time demanding their vendors hold to the terms offered – which often includes bargain rates. More work, less profit, more expensive delivery to meet the expedited terms.

When things start to heat up, many business owners are so busy chasing opportunity, they don’t take the time to step back and look at what’s happening. They’re so grateful to see business coming in, they put their heads down and bull forward. Too late, they realize they’ve committed to too much work, at less than favorable terms, with margins that don’t work well.

At the same time, as the economy heats up, other costs start going up. Here’s one simple example. We’ve all been to the gas pump lately. Employees, caught in the middle with flat wages and increasing costs, start to ask for gas allowances and pay increases. Vendors add fuel surcharges and price increases. Materials made of plastic cost more. The cost of making sales calls, ordering materials, and delivering finished goods and services goes up. The company gets squeezed in the middle, between low margin proposals and increasing costs.

What can a savvy business owner do? Schedule a weekly review session. Review the profit margin on each proposal, and on every outstanding account. Red flag accounts that have been particularly difficult to deal with, not likely to negotiate, or tolerate add on fees. Green light accounts that are likely to represent your company’s future – innovative, profitable, and respect what your company can do for them.

Figure out at a minimum how much business your company needs right now to breakeven. If your company is already profitable, plan on 15% – 20% revenue growth per year. Focus on growing products and services that are the most profitable.

Go back to the red flag accounts and be a tough negotiator. Be willing to walk away. Send the least profitable accounts to your competitors – let them deal with the headaches. Focus on getting the green light accounts.  Know that the decisions you make could represent the future success or failure of your business.

If you and your employees are able to take on high quality business, and avoid doing business with the loser accounts, you’ll be headed in the right direction. Profitable accounts mean you can give employees raises, afford the inflation that’s likely to come, invest in infrastructure, pay down debt, build reserves, and reward the owner(s).

Looking for a good book? Found Money: Simple Strategies for Uncovering the Hidden Profit and Cash Flow in Your Business by Steve Wilkinghoff.

______________________________________

Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., www.StrategyLeaders.com, a business consulting firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurial firms grow. She can be reached by phone at 877-238-3535. Do you have a question for Andi?  Please send it to her, via e-mail at AskAndi@StrategyLeaders.com or by mail to Andi Gray, Strategy Leaders Inc., 5 Crossways, Chappaqua, NY 10514. Visit www.AskAndi.com for an entire library of Ask Andi articles.

pdf version