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You
can't predict, you can prepare. |
The
holy grail of sales management is to have an entire sales team of top
performers. Whatever drives your
economic engine—the
commissions,
the recognition, the job security, the advancement opportunities, the
sweet victories over the competition—let
that motivate you to take the
Sales
Acumen challenge.
Benjamin
Franklin said it best, " The definition of
insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results."
How
much better would your sales results be if you had 80% of your salespeople
with the productivity of your current top 20%?
The
80/20 Rule will kill sales team performance. If 80% of your salespeople are
not producing excellent results, they are not making enough
commissions or achieving the success of top performers—they
"move on" (voluntarily or involuntarily) and you are left
with a lot of (low return) work replacing them. This doom loop
will eventually take its toll on management—and
eventually the company.
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Management
can close the performance gap, having 80% of the
sales team with the productivity of top
performers. |
How
do your salespeople get your message out when customers
are getting information from the
internet, reducing reliance on salespeople?
Buyers
think they are getting the information they need about products and services from
the Internet. They have access to competitive information, "expert"
opinions, customer feedback and pricing information. They love to buy,
and are afraid of being sold.
The
customer shops for features, but may not get any useful benefits. If the
customer buys features they'll never use, did they
get a good value?
The
customer shops for price, but may buy too much capacity. If the
price is lower but the customer buys more than they need, did they get a
good value?
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Salespeople
can add value by developing solutions that exactly meet their customer's
needs. Solutions that address customer issues and provide
desired results would compel the customer to take action. |
What
are the profiles of your
top performing salespeople that
are succeeding in this dynamic
environment, and how can you hire more salespeople with their
characteristics?
If
your like most companies, you
have a sales performance gap in your organization—your
top (20%) performers are thriving and your bottom (80%) performers are struggling.
Peter
Drucker, world renowned professor and management consultant, estimates
that as many as 2/3 of hiring decisions may be mistakes. Most
employee hiring decisions are made with inadequate information. To
make the correct hiring decisions, you
need information—more information than can be obtained from
traditional interview and reference checking methods.
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The cost of poor performance
and employee turnover can have a
devastating impact on productivity and profits. |
Are
your customer-facing people trained for optimal performance in this
challenging business world? How
can you determine the development needs of new hires
and the existing sales team? What are the skill gaps that need to be closed
for salespeople to be successful? How do you provide sales training in a
manner that does not disrupt sales productivity?
Salespeople
must add business value. It is not sufficient for them to know about
your products and services, they must understand their customers' specific opportunities,
issues and desired results, decision
making process, and risk tolerance.
Salespeople
need a business perspective with the sales, business,
relationship, financial and technical skills to find out how to help their customer
succeed.
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Sales
pressure and fatigue can result in shortcutting the consultative
sales process, a trap that can only be broken by an uplifting,
developmental workshop led by a professional the sales team will
respect. |
How
can you insure sales progress is
efficient and results in maximum profitable revenue?
The
role of sales management is to monitor the sales force’s activity, progress, and results; assess
opportunities and problems as they arise; and redirect salespersons’
efforts efficiently. Sales managers need a catalytic
mechanism that drives economic progress
in a manner that produces predictable results.
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Effective
communication, commitment of resources, and forecast accuracy
cannot be left to chance or ad hoc encounters between sales
teams and their management. |
What
are customers looking for?
Customers are facing the
same pressures you are. What they need to achieve success is a
trusted advisor, an expert in their field, a business partner—a
company that has been there before and successfully dealt with similar issues and opportunities.
Going
it alone or with the use of the internet only, is a sub optimal approach—time is extended, expense is greater, and outcomes are
lessened. It can be a very lonely job—one where the customer assumes full
accountability—and
frequently suffers the consequences.
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Customers
need a sales partner that can use their experience to solve
problems, get results and make them successful. |
The
Sales Acumen challenge.
For
qualified
companies, we will do a free assessment of your
performance improvement opportunity
that identifies the:
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Sales
team hiring, training and managing issues that are
obstructing increases to profitable sales;
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Results
that can be realized by removing the hiring, training and management
obstructions;
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Quantifiable
returns you can expect by achieving obtainable results;
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Quantifiable
investment you would have to make to get the expected return.
Pre-qualification
checklist:
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Do
you have an annual salesperson turnover rate greater than 15% (are
you loosing any of your top performers)?
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Do
you have a performance gap in your sales team
with 20% or fewer of
its members generating 70% or greater of the sales?
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Are
you missing sales forecasts because of unexpected delays in the
sales cycle?
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Based
on your historical closing rate, do you lack qualified prospects to
insure you beat your assigned sales targets.
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Have
you lost a key customer to the competition?
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Are
you experiencing pricing pressure that is eroding your margins?
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Are
your salespeople having difficulty getting appointments with
decision-makers?
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Do
you have 40 or more customer-facing salespeople (direct sales,
telesales, telemarketing, sales support, customer and field service)?
Whether
you have an internal HR and training department or not, if you answered
yes to some or most of these questions, you have a high probability of
being able to significantly and immediately increase profitable sales. Email or call (714)
612-1511 to discuss your situation further.
Request
a free consultation »
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