STRATEGIC
APPROACH TO SALES TURNAROUND
Have you ever had an existing
account (that you thought was safe) disappoint
you at the last minute or take their business to the competition? Trying
to make a desperate pitch to win-back the customer did you ever have a customer say to you:
·
“You’re not really a strategic vendor
for us” (even though they are one of your key accounts).
·
“After careful consideration,
we’ve decided to switch providers” (even when you didn’t know they were
considering a switch).
·
“Your competition understands
us better than you do.”
·
“Will you lower your price to
keep our business?
These are ALL symptoms of a lack of a well designed ;
proactive strategic approach to selling. And that’s holding back your
growth and success.
Over the last decade, the world of B2B selling has changed beyond
recognition. Face-to-face, transactional selling is dead; where customers want
to do transactional business, it is far more effective for both buyer and
seller to use the internet or telephone. Increasingly, customers resent having
to spend time in sales calls purely to make standard transactions, and some
customers are even beginning to measure the cost of spending their time in this
way. From the supplier side, sending a sales person or a team of people is
simply too expensive unless they can add real value
Most businesses today depend on growth just for survival.
Operational costs are rising year-by-year and companies need budgets to upgrade programs, hire pricey talented
professionals, finance research and innovation; or costly promotions to step up
marketing efforts. If you have investors then there’s the added pressure to
perform better quarter after quarter, year after year. How does a company do
this? GROW OR GET EXTINCT is the new business mantra.
STRATEGIC APPROACH TO SELLING
aren’t just fancy business words. Client retention and long-term
satisfaction directly depend on well-positioned key action steps, and it’s what
every enterprise should consistently focus on and improve upon. My observation of what makes sales
performance successful reveals that
there are some proven ways that drive effectiveness:
ASSESSING YOUR CURRENT STATE
A self-assessment of how you are performing is vital towards
establishing how to better manage your sales volume and market share going
forward. Review
your company’s strategy every three years just to keep pace in today’s
fast-shifting marketplace.
·
Rethink your value proposition
before the customer. You also need to verify the opportunities you are
maximizing for your customers or the problems you are helping to solve and ensure these also have a
start-to-finish strategy for each one.
·
Create an "industry and marketing intelligence system"
in order to systematically obtain information from your industry, customers,
competitors. This will help you in segmenting your marketplace, and in
understanding your best and worst product/service capabilities with respect to
your competition.
·
Categorize your marketplace (customers) by industry, customer size
or other significant demographic distinctions and then list those categories in
order of greatest current and/or potential profitability to your business. Then
ask yourself how to a) best pursue buyers within the categories at the top of
your list, and b) harvest or divest your business of customer categories at the
bottom end of your list. Follow the same course with your company’s
products/services and distribution channels.
·
Select carefully in your product/market matrix; pursuing too many
"rising stars" i.e. future products and future markets can diffuse
your organization’s energy. Spot your highest potential marketplace
"stars" and pursue vigorously those product/market segments first.
·
Don’t try to be all things to all customers. Pick whether your
company can best pursue: 1) product or service leadership (being the best in a
product/service category), 2) customer intimacy (focusing on serving a broad
array of needs in a particular customer segment), or 3) operational excellence
(providing best overall efficiency or lowest cost).
·
Align your company’s marketing and sales efforts with your
strategy. You may choose to set up separate marketing and sales goals, tactics
and materials for different sets of viable cells in your product/market matrix.
·
Make sure that your organization’s policies, processes and people
are fully aligned with your chosen business strategy. If they are not, then you
may be sending a mixed message not only to your marketplace, but also to your
company’s people.
UNDERSTANDING THE
COMPETITION
A good competitive analysis varies according to what industry
you’re in and your specific marketing plan and situation. A comprehensive
competitive analysis does have some common themes.
To understand the strengths of your own business, you must
understand your competition and your positioning. Who competes with you for
your customers’ time and money? Are they directly selling competitive products
and services, substitutes, or possible substitutes? What are their strengths
and weaknesses? How are they positioned in the market?
In other words, you should know how you are positioned in the
market. Why do people buy your product or services instead of the others
offered in the same general categories? What benefits do you offer at what
price, to whom, and how does your mix compare to others? Think about specific
kinds of benefits, features, and market groups, comparing where you think you
can show the difference.
Describe each of your major competitors in terms of those same
factors. This may include their size, the market share they command, their
comparative product quality, their growth, available capital and resources,
image, marketing strategy, target markets, or whatever else you consider
important.
Make sure you specifically describe the strengths and weaknesses
of each competitor, and compare them to your own. Consider their service,
pricing, reputation, management, financial position, brand awareness, business
development, technology, or other factors that you feel are important. In what
segments of the market do they operate? What seems to be their strategy? How
much do they impact your business, and what threats and opportunities do they
represent?
CONCLUDING: THE WAY AHEAD
As the sales role moves further from its
transactional past to the consultative business partner of today, the
requirement grows to support those sales professionals with systems to get
answers quickly. There are
many reasons why turnaround plans fail,
especially:
·
Failure to follow the plan ;No follow through
after initial planning
·
Failure to get management involved right from
the start
·
Failure to obtain sufficient company
resources to accomplish task
·
Failure to manage change; Inadequate
understanding of the internal resistance to change
·
Failure to understand the customer
·
Inability to predict environmental/competitor
reaction
·
Failure to coordinate; Under-estimation of
time requirements
·
Improper estimation of resources available or
needed or to be deployed
·
Reporting and control relationships not
adequate
Recognize that sales
turnaround is an organizational change, not a quick fix solution to a
superficial problem. ..Sales turnaround implementations takes
repeated efforts year-on-year with stepped goals for improvement...
Best of
luck
Dr Wilfred Monteiro
DR WILFRED MONTEIRO - coach | consultant | trainer
sales performance turnaround specialist
www.synergymanager.net
