1. High productivity
2. Low turnover
3. Satisfied clients
4. Industry leading revenue growth
5. Continuous improvement

With these in mind, how do you prepare and launch a national sales force expansion?   VSpring has identified 16 core sales processes that need to be in place prior to launch.  These same processes are a good source for assessing a small, regional sales team. 

1. Sourcing
2. Hiring
3. On-boarding
4. Training
5. Coaching and Counseling
6. Sales tool development
7. Activity-based sales process
8. New business sales strategy
9. Major account sales process
10. Current account management
11. Compensation, reward and recognition
12. Reporting process
13. Performance management
14. Management process
15. Forecasting
16. Career progression plan

Business leaders can quickly assess sales force effectiveness and the overall maturity for each of these areas.  It’s within reach of every organization to have a solid sales machine working for them.

Some of the many things to be considered after a call are:

What went right?

What went wrong?

What caused it?

How would you do it differently next time?

The following are things you can in a call to directly affect the results:

Measure Your Performance

1. Stay tuned to measures of success or failure you anticipated for the call. 
   1. Does the prospect show the appropriate level of interest? 
   2. Is he/she engaged in the conversation? 
   3. Is the energy with you or the contact?
   4. Is the contact skeptical or “assuming the sale”?

Identify the Problem

1. What’s causing the poor results?  Don’t be defensive and jump to conclusions; are they too busy with other urgent issues to pay close attention?   Are they prepared for the meeting?
2. What’s motivating your client’s behaviors?  Is it anything you’re doing or, possibly not doing?  Has their business needs changed?  Has the personal needs of your contact changed?
3. Develop a theory of what’s going on in the call and test it by changing the subject or opening up the agenda to the client’s wishes.
4. Ask.  In some cases a simple, direct request for understanding is all you need.  In other cases, a more diplomatic approach may be needed to have the contact open up.

Lead the Way

1. Once you think you know what’s causing the discrepancy, suggest a new route that you think the client will appreciate.
2. Once you get the client to say “yes”, look for more ways to get them to agree with you and rebuild momentum in their following your lead.

Close for Action

1. Ask the contact to take an important step towards a sales conclusion
2. Worst case, offer an action for you to take that they’ll accept.  Then ask them to pick up a part of it.

Knowing where you stand against your sales goals while you’re in a call can help you adjust “on the fly”, while still in control and enable you to make the most of the opportunity you’re pursuing.

Attendees

1. Who’s attending?
2. What are their individual perspectives and needs?
3. Who is your advocate and who is the skeptic?

Business Situation

1. What are the strategic business needs of this firm
2. What does this team of individuals care most about?  How are they compensated?
3. How does your product or offering meet their needs and the needs of the business?
4. Who is the competition?  How do you overcome the status quo, every situation’s biggest competitor?

Approach

1. Identify how you want to start the meeting, build to a climax and close for action
2. Be prepared for the prospect may want to direct the direction of the call so you can respond appropriately and redirect to your ideal approach
3. Anticipate questions and objections
4. Plan to appeal to their hearts and minds; pull their heart strings and self interest while producing compelling business logic.
5. Prepare key probing questions to draw out their real pain and value of having it replaced with your solution.

Measures of Success

1. What would be the ideal outcome of this call?
2. What is the minimum goal to keep the sales cycle alive?
3. What are the buying signs you want to see
4. What smaller indicators let you know you’re on track (e.g. good rapport, level of interest, many client questions, etc.) ?

Call to Action

1. What will you ask the prospect to do next to demonstrate they‘re qualified, to create sales momentum and to establish a shared involvement?

First and foremost, focus on the customer’s needs and motivations.  If you deliver something they value, you win!  Assuming you have something people want and are willing to pay for, how else can you bring some control over the sales process?  You can start by bringing a quality approach to sales.

Total Quality = Plan, Do, Check

Pre-call sales plan – Preparation for a call, alone, may double you success rate.  Review what you know about your prospect, identify their needs and goals.  Anticipate questions and objections you’re likely to experience along with your best possible answers.  Set clear objectives for the call with sales measures of success.

In-call sales adjustments – While following the approach you designed before the call, watch for your sales measures of success or failure and adjust during the call.  If you sense the call is going south, ask the client for their input on the meeting, uncover hidden sales concerns and ask what they were hoping for in the meeting.  Adjust to their feedback and salvage the event.  If the call goes well, take notes on what made it work for tour future appointments

Post-call sales review – Take the time to review every sales call after the call.  What went well?  What went poorly?  What was unexpected?  What can you do in the future to be better prepared and win more often?

The best source of sales control you have as a sales rep is simply control over yourself.  Focus your efforts on continuous improvement.  Improvements in your sales knowledge, skills and abilities will help you rise to any occasion and win sales more frequently.

When most people are asked to picture an “A” player, they picture someone with a winning style and a strong personality.   But if you’ve every managed a sales team, you know that is only the beginning of what it takes to consistently deliver results.  So let’s take a moment to list all the other qualities a real sales winner brings to their job:

1. Knowledge
   1. Industry expertise
   2. Competitive knowledge
   3. Products and services expertise
   4. Client needs and business acumen
   5. Skills
      1. Recognizing opportunities
      2. Converting clients’ needs into useful solutions
      3. The ability to communicate clearly and persuasively
      4. The ability to listen
      5. Juggling multiple demands and activities
      6. Project management and follow through
      7. Abilities
         1. Honesty
         2. Authenticity
         3. Work ethic
         4. Flexibility
         5. Selflessness in the face of crisis

The most successful reps have the knowledge skills and abilities to be the best in their field.  The elite reps within that group are fiercely protective of their time, focus on results, learn from their mistakes and take a balanced approach to their business by maintaining a healthy pipeline.

Style without substance is anathema to sales success and the standard of amateurs.

Sales is such an incredibly difficult art form, as you know.  The difference between a winner and an average rep is huge.   Can you ever really replace the very best?  Well, not the individual, certainly.  But you can replace their productivity, believe it or not. 

How?  By instituting and documenting a winning sales process for all your reps to follow. 

While each individual is different and both their personalities and skills shine through in their sales efforts, the best reps stand out above the rest in one area; they have a method.  Cloning that method and providing the proper tools, support and systems can make the most common, dare we say, even underperforming reps succeed.

Sounds pretty easy, right?  So what is a winning method? 

• Wasting little time on the frivolous.  
• Having a clear plan and step-by-step strategy.  
• Knowing that the sales cycle in your industry follows predictable steps and following those steps in a professional way actually leads to market results.
• Attempting to disqualify leads and move on as quickly as possible.

At VSpring Sales Solutions, our sales process methodology highlights 12 areas of excellence for fast, efficient and high performance sales teams.  Ultimately, how well those 12 elements sync up will determine whether a team’s method is:

1. Simple
2. Consistent
3. Repeatable
4. Low Cost
5. Efficient
6. Productive

In the end, we need to replace our dangerous dependency on a few outstanding reps (although we should do all we can to keep them!) with an outstanding sales approach that the most common rep can follow.  That’s how you can “replace” a Sales Star and deliver extraordinary sales results!

First, resourceful entrepreneurs capture the available opportunities from an economic downturn, by thinking outside the box. That is, identifying and capturing new and alternative ways of doing business; reallocating and reducing resources.

My recommendation for surviving until tomorrow is to re-focus your business goals and objectives. Begin with reducing you time horizons from three to five years to six to twelve months – you’re in survival mode! The primary goal is to survive the current economic downturn and to develop a lean and mean operation. The secondary goal is to grow even during these current conditions.

Objectives should include conserving cash, protecting assets, reducing costs, improving efficiencies and growing your customer base. Focus on what you can control and your key strengths, expand/strengthen your use of strategic alliances, communicate your needs to your network, and negotiate/re-negotiate better contracts.

My specific recommendations to employ include:

1. Project cash requirements three-to-six months in advance.

2. Convert excess, obsolete, and slow-moving inventory items into cash. Consider narrowing your product offerings.

3. Convert accounts receivable to cash as quickly as possible. Offer prompt payment discounts to encourage timely payments. Make changes in the terms of sale for slow paying customers. Invoice as soon as possible after products are shipped and/or after services are delivered.

4. Make customer satisfaction your priority and leverage your existing customer base. Consider signing long-term contracts with your core customers which will provide a foundation for your security.

5. Re-negotiate contracts with your suppliers, lenders, and landlord – everything in business is negotiable.

6. Re-evaluate your staffing requirements and consider the use of part-timers or the outsourcing of certain functions to independent contractors. This is a role VSpring Sales can assist you with. Again, focus on your key strengths and what you must have in order to survive.

7. Re-visit all of your insurance policies. Get new quotes; revise coverages and deductibles.

8. Increase your advertising expenditures, if possible. The downturn is a great time to increase brand awareness.

9. Create an advisory board, if you don’t have one, and if you do have one, get them engaged. A CPA, attorney, and other business consultants can provide you with inexpensive professional advice.

10. Attempt to reduce overall expenses by 10-15%.

Remember, the idea is to survive the downturn to be able to play another day, and if possible, grow the firm and become a stronger competitor. Following the collapse of the oil industry in 1980, I survived long enough to sell the company in 1985.

When it’s bogus. 

The Marketing Concept begins with the simplest of ideas: find an unmet need and fill it.  So many times when our revenue performance is disappointing, we begin pointing a finger at the usual suspects; the “lazy” sales reps, cheating competitors, exorbitant prices, or disloyal customers.  The first place to start is by asking yourself this simple question – Is your marketing effort authentic?

Authentic marketing means you actually deliver what you promised in the first place.  Your brand is your promise.  When it’s counterfeit, so is your marketing program.  Making a promise you’re unable to deliver leads to unhappy customers, increased operational costs, a ruined reputation and declining revenues.  The converse is a growing reputation, increased buzz, greater numbers of new/returning customers, and declining selling costs.    

 So, how do you ensure your marketing is authentic?

Truly authentic marketing means you offer something you believe in; something you can deliver that will bring value to others and, ideally, something you can articulate with passion.  You know you’ve got the basis for a winning marketing campaign when you meet a real need, you offer a compelling solution, and you are able to meet or exceed your customers’ expectations.  Once you’ve met this first strategic hurdle, you can begin to plan for cost effective campaigns to predictably drive revenue and profits.

In hard times, the grim reality is that grabbing business from fallen players is one of the few avenues to growth.  There are tremendous market opportunities today in which the smartest and most aggressive players can win.  Finding a winning formula now can dramatically change the path of your firm in the future and its ultimate position in the marketplace.

Steps to win market share:

Study your industry and follow trends.  Understand how your clients’ buying criteria are changing.

 1.  Weigh your current strengths and weaknesses against those factors most crucial for future success.

 2.  Research your competition to determine who is most vulnerable and why.

 3.  Increase your capacity for speed by reaching out to the weakest competitors and reviewing partnering or merger/purchase opportunities with them.

 4.  Target those market segments where the vulnerable firms succeeded in the past.  Develop a focused sales or promotional campaign to cannibalize their clients.

 5.  Leverage successes with an ongoing public relations campaign to build momentum as well as your brand.

Future business winners are acting now to leverage change.  You will likely be surprised just how open your competitors’ clients will be to alternative solutions.  Take this opportunity to be THE survivor-of-the fittest.  It’s time to “Go For It” again.