Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Tue, Sep 07, 2010
A number of recent surveys have found that sales pipelines are filling faster than a year ago but sales cycles are getting longer. This leaves sales leaders with a tough challenge: how accelerate the sales cycle and increase sales when customers are taking longer to purchase.
There are many strategies for accelerating sales cycles – even in challenging times
One of the most reliable techniques is to conduct customer audits. You can train your sales team to do this but most companies hire an outside consulting firm to conduct their customer audits. Outside consultants have an advantage because customers are usually more honest with a third-party consultant than they are with a company’s sales rep.
What is a customer audit?
A customer audit is a detailed review of how your company is perceived by its customers, a review of each customer’s needs, and an evaluation of the role your company is playing in each of your customer’s businesses. Most B2B firms audit all of their customers. Some companies with very large customer bases, audit their valuable and high-potential customers, or audit a random sample of customers and use that information to classify similar customers.
There is no standard template for a customer audit but it usually includes:
- Category purchases made in the past year, and planned purchases for the near-term. Depending on the sector, the near-term is usually 1 to 5 years.
- Detailed information about the company’s purchasing cycle and decision process.
- Your customer’s most compelling business problems that relate to your company.
- Evaluation of your company’s performance over the past year versus customer’s needs.
- Product and service gaps with your company’s offering.
- Identification of incremental business opportunities within this customer’s business.
- Ways to build a higher-level relationship with your customer.
- Barriers to purchasing that are related to your customer’s business that are outside of your ability to overcome.
Analyzing Results of a Customer Audit
The results of a customer audit can help your sales team focus on the best sales opportunities, and optimize the sales message. The identification of product and service gaps can inform your organization on high-potential new product development and service enhancement investments. The audit can also provide directional information that can be used to define more effective strategies for pursuing new customers.
How do you accelerate sales? We are experienced in customer audits and many other ways to improve sales performance. Contact us for a free consultation.
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Thu, Sep 02, 2010
Effective, successful new product launches have become more important than ever, but are one of the highest risk business investments. You can, however, increase your chances of success with these new product launch best practices.
Make sure everyone is on the same page - before you launch. Successful new product launches require that the sales organization, marketing and customer service are well aligned and work together to create more opportunities and win customers. If everyone is working together, your company will gain new customers more effectively and improve lead generation, prospecting, and conversion rates.- Establish a cross-functional launch team with dedicated leadership. A major product launch isn't a part-time job. Successful new product launches usually are managed by teams solely responsible for building the market for the new product or service. These launch teams should also reach broadly across functions: public relations, marketing, product management, sales, project management, customer service/support and other core function involved in bring the new product to the market.
- Leverage past successes. Build on proven processes and systems to manage the new product launch. Look for a team leader and for team members who have successfully launched new products in the past. If your company has experience gaps, hire or contract with people who have a proven track record.
- Formalize the launch plan. Ensure there is a detailed, formal launch plan that includes: sales objectives, sales channel strategy, promotional plan, contingency plans, and schedule with key milestones. Plus, make sure the entire executive team is on board with the plan before the launch starts.
- Expand your organization with consultants. Bring in consultants to staff up in areas where you have talent and/or experience gaps. After the launch is well underway, you can easily downsize without disrupting your organization.
- Launch aggressively and pre-empt the competition. Most new products need to be quickly established in the marketplace before the competition can respond with an imitation. So make sure that when you launch, you are ready to take a dominant position. Many new product launches fail because there was a lack of time for pre-launch planning or inadequate resources to properly introduce the product and pre-empt the competition.
- Track progress. Establish a process to track, monitor and review launch progress against financial and schedule goals throughout the entire process. Make sure that the oversight process is rigorous, regular and required.
Need help with your new product rollout? Our team can help.
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Tue, Aug 31, 2010
A CEO's most important job – Chief Revenue Officer
A CEO must be many things for a company to succeed. Many CEOs are visionaries and inspiring role models, some are brilliant at attracting and retaining the best talent, and every CEO is the ultimate decision maker. But when the quarter closes, the CEO is ultimately responsible for the top and bottom lines. And the top line is more important than ever.
The top line really matters
In today's economy, revenue growth is difficult for many companies to achieve. It takes relentless focus and complete organizational commitment to drive sales growth in the face of increased competition, in an ever-changing and stagnant marketplace. But growth is essential - most investors require it, and many customers only want to buy from a company that is successful which means a company that has sales growth. Yesterday, it was OK to focus on operational efficiency and cost control; today, winning required sales growth.
So, what can a CEO do to improve sales performance?
First and foremost, a CEO can attract, select and retain a sales organization that can deliver sustained growth. This can be an in-house sales team, an outsourced sales team or a hybrid organization. A CEO can assemble a sales team with the talent, drive and knowledge to succeed. A CEO should also align his entire organization to focus on the customer and make sure that at every customer contact point the customers' needs are met or exceeded. But a CEO can do more - he can be his company's secret weapon.
How to be your company's secret weapon
- Establish CEO-to-CEO connections with key customers and top prospects. The best way to make a CEO-to-CEO connection productive is make it beneficial for both your company and the companies of the CEOs that you connect with.
- Keep your communications at the executive level - leave the sales process and deal making to your sales team. You can add little to the day-to-day sales process and you will reduce your real and perceived power if you get involved in the details.
- Make sure everyone on your sales team knows and owns their role and isn’t intimidated by your involvement. Build a relationship of respect and trust.
- Build relationships that enable your team gain the access and information needed to build strong customer relationships and be there to help overcome any unexpected issues that arise.
Three things a CEO should avoid
- Don't personally change the company's pricing, service or warrantee policies for a specific deal without a lot of thought. For most business sectors, these 'special' offers are best coming from the sales rep responsible for the account - the primary sales contact - so that they develop a relationship with the client.
- Be careful that your pride in your own company and its products isn't perceived as arrogance.
- Make sure that you do not disrupt the sales process. The most brilliant and experienced CEOs are actually the most likely to disrupt everything because they know so much. Trust your team. If you don't trust them, perhaps you need a new team.
How are you driving sales for your organization?
Consider sales outsourcing as a proven way to increase sales and enter new markets.
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
The goal of a Rapid Market Entry is to rapidly acquire a significant market share. But what is the best way to achieve this?
There are a number of strategies for Rapid Market Entry – Price Leadership and Production Differentiation are two of the most common. But a Focus Market Strategy is often the most effective and most rapid way to enter a new market. This strategy is quite simple – “focus” first on one high-potential segment of the marketplace. Design the message, pricing, feature set and support services for this specific market segment and serve them is such an exceptional manner, that no one else can compete.
Since your company is just entering the market, you can afford to outflank the competition by addressing this specific market segment while the competition needs to be spread across the entire market. Once you have conquered this market segment, then you can move on to other parts of the market.
How to win with a Rapid Market Entry
To get your target customers to change vendors or consider a new product, your company needs to have an offering that is better, faster and/or cheaper. The majority of buyers will need to have more than just a fancy presentation. Then look for ways to differentiate your company’s support and customer-service specifically for your target customer segment.
Other considerations for Rapid Market Entry
- Make sure your team can handle a Rapid Market Entry. Rapid Market Entry is often very effective because it is well underway before your competitors can respond. Before you launch, make sure your team has the recourses to be successful. If they don’t, then develop a strategy to increase your capabilities by either expanding your staff or through sales outsourcing.
- Consider test marketing as the first step in the implementation process. This can be simulated, controlled, and/or conventional test marketing, but make sure it is designed to allow your team to evaluate, decide, and refine the product and its launch program before your rollout.
- You do not always need to be first. The market entry strategy is situational and depends on the nature of the product and the market. But often later market entrants acquire and retain the largest market share.
- Make sure your team has tracking and contingency plans in place before you launch. Once a new product is launched, set up regular tracking of performance versus goals. If goals are not being met, make sure that there are options to modify and improve the program to get it on track. The failure to make quick fixes and program changes can lead to a product launches early demise or the continuation of mediocre performance.
What are your challenges for rapid market entry? How are you overcoming them?
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Wed, Aug 25, 2010
For the past couple of years every major sales force automation (SFA) company has been talking about how vital Sales Force Automation 2.0 (SFA 2.0) technology is. Combining the wireless Web with social technologies brings sales, marketing and consumers closer together, but does it solve the basic issues facing your sales team?
Vendors promise that SFA 2.0 will solve almost every issue a company has from pipeline management practices to building customer relationship that will hold up in today’s brutally completive marketplace. But SFA 2.0 is just another tool and it is useless unless it is part of an overall sales strategy. Investing in these solutions without have a plan, is a bit like buying the most expensive power tools and hiring an expensive construction crew to build a house without first investing in a set of blueprints.
Why do most SFA investments fail to pay off?
Most companies do not have a clearly articulated sales strategy. They do not have processes that help their sales reps find the most effective way to sell. If they haven’t done this vital planning, even an investment in the best new technology invariably results in costly SFA implementations that do not have the expected ROI.
How can you avoid this trap?
First and foremost, make sure that your management team has defined the overarching sales strategy and put in place processes that will enable your sales team to find the most effective sales message. Then make sure that your organization has put in place these five elements of effective sales process management.
- Formalize the lead qualification process so that your reps can focus on the later part of the buying process.
- Develop sales messages tailored for different market segments.
- Design a flexible organization with the ability to ramp up or down rapidly based on changing market conditions.
- Test, measure, track and optimize results.
- Leverage market intelligence from other business sectors.
For most large companies, this is all achievable because the organization has the staff and resources to rapidly accomplish this. For a mid-sized company, putting these elements in place often stretches the sales management team too far and distracts from ongoing sales efforts. The most successful path for a mid-sized company is to hire an outsourced sales force and strategy organization to aggressively fill these gaps.
Has your company used an outsourced sales force or sales strategy partner to accelerate your sales efforts?
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Mon, Aug 23, 2010
Yesterday, I had lunch with a business associate. He is a very successful Korean businessman who owns a couple of high tech manufacturing firms. He was in the U.S. to unwind a failed joint venture (JV) with an American company and wanted to ask my advice. The story was a simple tale that I had heard too many times before.
A business can enter the U.S. in a number of ways
Licensing, joint ventures, acquisitions, working through existing distribution networks, establishing a U.S. subsidiary or even direct to consumer via the internet. Sometimes companies combine these approaches to enter the U.S. market. But no matter what path a company takes, the decision the CEO and his team make about how to enter the U.S. can be the difference between a success and failure.
Back to my business associate
For many years his only efforts in the U.S. were to provide private label merchandise to a few very large U.S. retailers. The U.S. private label efforts focused on a small portion of his company’s product lines – inexpensive accessories. These private label initiatives were not as profitable as most of the other parts of his business.
This CEO recognized that the U.S. market was the largest and most profitable market in the world for his company’s products. He knew that it was time to fully enter the U.S. market. After considering many options, the CEO decided to establish a joint venture with a U.S. based company who was in a similar, but non-competitive business.
Even before the ink on the JV agreement was dry, issues started to arise. His U.S. partner had access to the right distribution channels but did not have the financial or technical capabilities to really support the market entry. Over time, the issues did not go away and the Korean company’s U.S. entry had stalled. My associate was in the U.S. to terminate this JV agreement but did not want to give up on the U.S. market. He wanted my advice on the best next step.
In listening to this story, I realized that the CEO had not considered entering the U.S. market with an outsourced sales team. His company had the financial resources and technical support team needed to support a U.S. entry. All he really needed was cost-effective access to U.S. distribution channels and a U.S. sales force. The cost to enter the U.S. market would still be low, and the company would control pricing and the arrangement should net a higher profit then other business arrangements. Plus, if properly structured, his company could avoid U.S. income taxes. The biggest trade off is the company would also have to assume more financial risk.
Entering the U.S. market with an Outsourced Sales Team is not always the best course, but it certainly should be on every CEO’s list of options.
Contact us for more information on sales outsourcing options for your business.
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Fri, Aug 13, 2010
Is sales an art or a science? This question has been asked a lot. And the usual answer is the non-committal, but wrong answer: "It's both." In reality, sales is at its core a science often so skillfully disguised as an art that the customers and, many salespeople, have no idea science is involved.
Does it really matter? Absolutely!
By science, I mean applying systematic processes to persuade people to buy a product. Sometimes the processes are so habitual that we forget how much science is involved. Deciding where to focus effort, selecting the best prospects, observing the prospect carefully to know when to ask for the order, doing everything in the right order to make a sales transaction occur and make sure the buyer returns, are all systematic, even scientific processes.
A sales transaction is always complex process. But from the simple act of purchasing a candy bar in a supermarket checkout line to a purchasing manager buying industrial equipment, the basic process is the same. The first step is to gain awareness, then build interest and create a desire for your product.
The "art" often appears to come at the next, critical step – creating trust – converting a prospect’s interest in your offering into a belief that they can trust you and trust what you say about the product. Persuading buyers with clarity and passion in the hands of a master may look like art, but the most powerful persuasion techniques are carefully designed and managed. A sales pro will make sure that his client never feels like a target and gives the illusion that the sales presentation is as unique as the buyer this he is.
Over the years, research has uncovered persuasion techniques that are most effective, most often. These techniques combined are often labeled "the art of the sale" but they are really carefully calculated b2b sales strategies.
People want to buy from an expert
A prospective buyer starts to identify an expert based upon appearance. Does the salesperson look like they know a lot about the product? Once a salesperson has passed this initial visual screening, they need to demonstrate they really have product knowledge.
Parrots make poor salespeople
People prefer to buy from salespeople who do not need to memorize information. Practicing your sales pitch so that you will appear fluent when talking about the product is essential to maximizing success. A professional, more informal presentation almost always beats out a canned pitch delivered by a salesperson who seems like they just memorized the presentation.
Buyers prefer to buy from confident, relaxed and friendly salespeople
Studies have consistently found that prospects are hesitant to buy from salespeople who appear nervous or insecure. It is all about attitude – be confident and smile. No matter what happens, even if things go awry, stay cool, calm and collected when making presentations, answering questions or demonstrating to your potential customers. Some salespeople have built their careers by responding calmly and humorously to mistakes – they use these occasions as opportunities to build a relationship with the prospect.
Honesty works
It is much easier to convince a person about something that you believe is true than it is to convince them about something that you do not believe.
Buyers can usually recognize overselling
Overstating the benefits of your product will either fail in the initial sales presentation or fail when your products cannot live up to the promises you made. In controlled studies, buyers were surprisingly reliable at identifying overselling even when they had no expertise or experience with the product category.
Trying to close the sale prematurely almost always fails
Watch for signs your prospect is ready to buy. Sometimes a buyer will give you direct information that the time is right. They will ask about pricing and payment plans, delivery schedules, warrantees or other questions that indicate that they have move to the next step in the buying process. And usually these verbal signals will be accompanies by more subtle, non-verbal cues: open body language, direct eye contact, nodding, agreeing, enthusiastic responses, making calculations, or, the obvious one, reaching for a pen or wallet.
A direct close is usually most effective
Once you detect the right moment, a direct question like, "Which one would you like?" is usually more effective than an indirect close.
What do you think? Is sales an art or a science?
We can help you with your sales performance.
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Mon, Aug 09, 2010
When I ask sales executives, "What is your biggest challenge?" I hear a lot of different answers. One of the most common answers is "getting more high-quality leads." Very often, however, we find their company already has many sales opportunities that are being missed. Focusing on fixing these sales leaks vs. getting more leads can result in larger sales gains.
Top 5 Ways to Lose a Sale
Not recognizing a prospect. The number one way companies miss a sales opportunity is when they fail to recognize a prospect. Someone doesn’t forward an inquiry in a timely manner or at all. A sales rep doesn’t ask the right qualifying questions. Or a hundred other ways that organizations fail to connect with a prime prospect in time to make the sale. The Fix: Take a look at your sales process for handling inquires, make sure your sales reps are properly trained to recognized a prospect, and make everyone in the company who has customer contact part of your sales team.- Lack of planning. Planning gives you the best possible opportunity to reach your prospects with a timely sales presentation. It also enables sales reps to manage their most valuable resource, time – booking the right number of appointments so that they can spend enough time with each prospect to make the sale without ignoring valuable leads. The Fix: Make sure that you are not stretching your team too far and are properly staffed, consider expand your capabilities by working with a sales outsourcing company, determine if you have all the sales management tools you need to properly plan and track sales leads and discover any planning gaps.
- Poor first impression. You only get one opportunity to make a first impression. If you leave a bad first impression, you shouldn’t expect to be able to ever convince the prospect that it was the "wrong impression". The Fix: Put yourself in the customers’ place and look in the mirror – literally and figuratively – and be critical.
- Not knowing enough about the prospect before your meeting. Knowledge of your client and their market, and how your product can solve their problems, is essential to making a sales presentation that addresses your prospects needs and concerns. Taking the time to learn about your client before you meet can be the difference between sales success and failure. The Fix: Invest your time in doing research, make sure that you have access to the necessary sales support resources.
- Not really listening to the prospect. The Fix: Make sure to actively listen to your customers, ask open-ended questions that give them the opportunity to talk about their needs and concerns, encourage them to be open with you.
What do you think is the #1 way to miss a sales opportunity? Contact us for help with your sales performance.
Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Thu, Aug 05, 2010
Last month I turned on Major League Baseball's All-Star Game. The National League was once again facing the American League and, since the National League hadn't won since 1996, I was pretty sure I knew how it would turn out – the American League would win. I watched long enough to see the American League take the lead and then I changed the channel. I was sure the American League would win.
As even casual baseball fans know, I was wrong. In the end, the NL came from behind to win their first All-Star Game since 1996, ending a run of seven consecutive AL wins and 12 of 13, interrupted by a draw in 2002.
It made me think about how often we switch off and decide there is no way to win long before the decision is made.
In baseball, everything needs to work together for a team to win. A pitcher can have a perfect game but, if no one on his team crosses home plate, he can never win the game. Likewise, with a sales pitch, there are a lot of things that need to work together to make it successful.
- The product or service needs to have a market.
- The sales team and customer service reps need to know the product.
- The sales pitch needs to be fast and on target, and the benefits to the customer need to be tangible.
- More than anything else, you, your sales team and the fans in the stands need to believe you can win.
Putting together a winning sales season
Anyone who has ever tried selling something knows that it's hard. You have to learn to deal with rejection, to get 10 or 20 or more "no's" before you hear that "yes". And after a while, even the best sales rep may start to avoid tough, competitive sales situations that they are sure they can't win.
If you just leave the sales job to your sales reps and don't get your entire organization to give them support and encouragement, you aren't very likely to have a winning season. Align your organization to focus on the customer and support your sales reps, and you can chalk up a few more wins.
A sales team effort
Your best "pitcher" steps up to the plate. He looks towards home for a signal from the catcher. Is there someone there to give him the best pitch to throw to strike out this batter? Or is he standing on a field all alone with no teammates and no one cheer for him in the stands?
Has someone gathered the research info he needs? Is there a customer service team that is ready to make sure the post-sale service is so well executed that reorders are almost a guarantee? Is every point of customer contact focused on maximizing customer satisfaction? Do you take the time to recognize success and celebrate the big sales wins? Does your sales team really know that what they do matters?
Don't let the members of your team think they "know" how the game will end
If they are sure you are going to win the business, they may slack off and your competitor could steal it. And if they are sure you have no chance, nine out of ten times the prospect will see their lack of effort and resignation, and you'll lose the business.
Winners must believe they are capable of winning but they need to be committed to work hard and smart, day after day, to win.
How's your sales team's pitching staff doing? Ask us for advice.
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Posted by Mansfield Sales Partners on Mon, Aug 02, 2010
Sales outsourcing is commonplace - over 90% of businesses report using vendors for at least some of their Sales functions. Small and mid-sized businesses use outsourced sales teams to enable them to compete with large companies. Companies outsource sales functions to reduce costs without reducing revenue or negatively affecting their sales pipelines. Many companies use outsourced sales teams to accelerate the pace of new market entries. Some companies use sales outsourcing to expand their capabilities and credibility in specialty markets.
Even though almost all companies use sales outsourcing, the strategic use of sales outsourcing to accelerate sales is rare. I recently spoke with a few sales innovators to see how they were using sales outsourcing as a rapid sales growth driver. All of these business leaders had achieved sales increases - even in this tough economy.
New Territory
A CEO of a large manufacturing firm told me he accelerated his company's market entrance into new territories by partnering with a sales outsourcing company who had existing relationships and market presence in places where his company did not have sales reps but had untapped market share. A market entry that would have taken them a year to accomplish was completed in less than half that time by leveraging the resources of their sales partner.
New Product Introduction
The VP of Sales for a technology company said that one of the main reasons he adopted sales outsourcing is that it is the most cost-effective way he can launch new products that fall outside of his company's current product set. He keeps his in-house staff focused on existing markets and developing current clients. He then expands the company's new product marketing efforts by contracting with a sales outsourcing company that has a proven track record in selling similar technology. By doing this he has been able to move rapidly and beat his competitors by being first to market.
Digging Deeper
The head of Sales and Marketing for a business services firm actually lets an outsourced sales team compete with her in-house sales force. She says that the competition has kept everyone motivated to sell more and dig a bit deeper. Because of leveraged compensation plans, her sales reps were motivated to produce results where they can get them quickly and easily. They went after the low-hanging fruit, leaving much of the available market for the competition. Adding additional outsourced sales resources has enabled her company to gain additional market coverage, at a lower cost, and got her internal sales team to look at prospects more carefully before passing on them.
Running with the Big Dogs
My final conversation was with the CEO and owner of a mid-sized company who needed to do a better job competing with much larger companies. He also needed to reduce costs and reduce the company’s sales and marketing investment risk. After careful evaluation, he and his executive team decided to outsource the company's entire Business Development effort. Using a shared sales force allowed the company to dramatically expand their sale force reach while passing on some of their inherent risk to their service providers
Four different companies, all who had achieved sales increases in the past year. Four different companies who adopted innovative ways to integrate sales outsourcing into their growth strategy.
What's your growth strategy? We can help you with sales outsourcing.
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