Home Add to Favorite Contact Submit  
             29 March, 2024
 

    
Category:  Articles » Business » Strategic-Planning

 

Planning For Sales Success-10 Things Your People Need To Do Now

Popularity:
         Views: 1454
2007-01-23 23:28:54     
Article by Kevin Cahalane

Is it possible for your people (or you, their leader) to make a sales call today, without a goal/target and an outcome clearly in mind?

A sales call today is costing your organisation between $150 - $500 every single time a sales person walks through a customer's/prospect's door. (These figures are based on numerous industry surveys conducted over the years.)

The answer to the above question is a resounding 'NO'.

Sales people simply cannot be vendors (order takers) or tourists ('just in the area, thought I would pop in') any more. Customers and prospects today are sharper, busier, more demanding and conscious of the value their suppliers (should) offer them.

Listed below are some of the key areas of the Planning Process, so your sales team will, in the words of ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky ... 'skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been'.

Look at the Relationship 'GAP'. How are you perceived by your customers today? How do you want to be perceived in 6 - 12 months? What specific actions do you have to do to get there? This is a great sales team exercise.
Analyse your current customer base. Look for growth and product penetration opportunities; seek creative ways to help your customers grow their business. Do your people have upsell, cross-sell and account penetration objectives for every customer?
Know what business you are in - are you a one stop shop? Fountain of knowledge for your customers? A profit-making machine - again, for your customers? Or, is your company on the lower end of a customer's wish list, due to poor service from a member of your team?
Know what your customers want and need and create REAL VALUE for them - assist them with marketing and promotion? Train their staff (your product sales will soar, if you do)? What can you do to add REAL VALUE??
If you know the answer to the above, benchmark your sales team - this will determine your critical factors necessary for success and allow you to measure your team's sales and service excellence. Seek feedback from your customers on your sales team's performance.
Squeeze the most out of your time each day. Make each day GOLD by prioritising and preparing, long term planning will inevitably fail if you don't look after the everyday business - this takes commitment to the task and the process. Are your people good time and resource managers?
Your people should have a PURPOSE for every single call they make - a primary purpose; a value-adding purpose; establish a call back purpose as well. Your people will only build relationships with their customers if they know why they are calling.
Develop a plan for New Business Acquisition and Lost Business Reactivation. Will this be 5% - 10% - 20% of time spent? A plan definitely needs to be factored in to your long term planning.
Use the telephone! Keep in touch calls to customers, follow up, gaining appointments and low yield sales are all important but do not require personal calls all the time. The telephone is a powerful sales and service tool.
Develop and utilise a data base. This will enable you and your team to save time, control the sales process and gain instant feedback on what is happening in your market. Sales funnel development is also an essential sales tool.

Work with your sales team to develop and build on the above strategies and you will ensure successful results … and increased bottom line profits.

Kevin Cahalane, Sales & Service Momentum, is an international speaker, sales/customer service training professional and business strategy specialist. He is the publisher of popular e.zine 'SaSeMo' - read by thousands of sales, service, marketing and training managers around the world.

Specialized in: Sales Training - Your Business - Gain New Sales - Improve Profit
URL: http://www.sasemo.com
Print article      Bookmark this page
Related Articles 
Daycare Grants Requirements (Popularity: ): If you're a parent who simply cannot give up your work for the bright future of your children, finding the best daycare is the ultimate solution. This stage is very crucial for your kid since this education is important for total well being, emotional and intellectual development of the child. But what if you don't have money? Must it discourage you to provide the vest education for your child? Not ...
How to Start an In-Home Daycare (Popularity: ): Home daycare services can be a very rewarding occupation. Aside from earning a living, I get to spend much time with my son. There are also many other benefits for me and my family, it's like being a mother many times over, and no matter the demand from me, I will never get tired of it. Starting an in home day care taught not only me, but my family as ...
Impact of Turbulent Environments on Organizations (Popularity: ): Environmental dimensions characterize the arrangement of factors within the domains of the organization's environment. Managers of organizations must not only be able to identify environmental factors but must also understand the arrangement of factors to make correct decisions. One of the dimensions is turbulence.Turbulence is the extent to which environments are being disturbed by an increasing rate of exchanges between factors. Exchanges result from transfers of resources between organizations. As ...
Homogeneous and Heterogenous Environments of Organizations (Popularity: ): Complexity is the degree of similarity or diversity between the factors in an organization's environment. When factors are similar, the environment is referred to as homogeneous. When factors are diverse, the environment is referred to as heterogeneous.Organizations operating in homogeneous environments can specialize in producing one good or service to be distributed to the market. Homogeneous environments also allow an organization to simplify its operations as the knowledge and skills ...
SAS Statistical Analysis Software Can Save an Enterprise Millions (Popularity: ): SAS (Statistical Analysis System) is a 4th generation procedural language that allows programmers to use statistical data analysis and data dining to build descriptive and predictive statistical models. Data mining is the process of discovering previously unknown, actionable and profitable information from large consolidated databases and using it to support tactical and strategic business decisions and it is made very easy with SAS.The statistical techniques of data mining include linear ...


Related Business 
Sales Training and Business Development Solutions (Popularity: ): Sales training and business development services for those selling complex solutions to businesses and organisations. Guaranteed performance improvement. Free sales training resources. Since people are probably working as hard as they are able, improvement has got to come from working smarter. It doesn't matter how much experience or training a person has, there are always new ways to do things better, old ways whose time has come, and things that ...
Accountable Business Progress (Popularity: ): As all business are different and need different things at different stages in their business lifecycle, we have accessed the best people for your team with our trusted network of partners. Whether it is business strategy and planning, marketing, sales training and motivation, in-house learning or advertising and promotion, Accountable Business Progress will pull together the right team to deliver exactly what you and your business needs.
Success Cubes - People Functions (Popularity: ): Looking for Success! Hurry Up to get success through successcube.com.Know more about people functions, employee work life cube, employee master data maintain cube, leave management cube and many more.
Sales and Marketing Jobs (Popularity: ): Salesman help a website for the sales people created a by sales people. We have collated some of the best sales information and tools from sales websites around the world. Salesman Help is the most comprehensive source of sales information on the Internet with videos, interviews, sales tools, and Jobs on line and heaps more information and products for the sales person worldwide.
ASK - Accelerating Organisational Success (Popularity: ): ASK believe that people and organisations have the potential to succeed in their chosen fields and that this success can be accelerated.
Sales Communications Workshops (Popularity: ): Working seminars that cover topics such as sales strategies and planning, sales processes, and developing a sales meeting strategy.
Sales Higher (Popularity: ): Sales Higher is a sales assessment test for sales managers to easily identify applicants with the right sales personality to succeed in a competitive sales environment. At Sales Higher we do only one thing. And we do it well. We study sales ability and the people that make the most sales. And with that in mind we created a personality assessment that helps companies make their next sales hire with ...
Special People, Special Planning (Popularity: ): Special People, Special Planning is a special needs planning book on how to create a lifelong plan for special needs children and a disabled family member.
Serius Selling - Sales Techniques For Beginner (Popularity: ): SERIOUS™ Selling is an online,video based sales training program, packed with advanced sales techniques for both beginners and Pros. Discover the exact same techniques used by high performing sales professionals and see the IMPACT it has on your success.
Club Of New (Popularity: ): Place to get advice about relationships, personal issues and other things. Other fun things to do too. Get to know people from all over the country and share advice and experiences.