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Sales Strategies for a Changing Economy
Rob Hartnett interviewed by International Marketer Bella KatzAre the priorities of our sales force in the downturn different to thosein more buoyant times?
The priorities of a sales force should not alter during an economydownturn in terms of proper account management and customer service.However what does need to happen with sales people involved inbusiness to business sales is that major accounts must be locked downand protected as much as possible. The reason for this is that losing anypiece of business is not positive however losing a major account in thiseconomy is especially bad as new business is not as easy to win in adown economy.In times of economic downturn you will quickly see in your sales team whoare order takers and who are professional sales people. This means thatsales managers need to be working with their sales team closely andassisting those who have been surviving in the good times but are nowstruggling. Additional sales training or review of your sales team may be inorder.
What 3 key pieces of advice can you offer to help increase sales rightnow
?1. Hold your prices and margins and increase your customer service2. Ensure you have a major account review process that ensures yourkey accounts remain committed to you3. Win fast and walk quickly. The economy is very patchy at present. Notonly are some industries affected by the economy more than othersthere are many organisations that are being more affected more thanothers. This often comes down to the leadership and culture of theorganisation. So you must work with active prospects who are buyingand leave those prospects who are negative or shrinking to anothertime. That is not to say abandon them, just focus on the activeaccounts that are buying.
How can I get the most out of the sales people I already have?
1. Have regular sales meetings – keep your team talking andcommunicating wins, key learning’s and market changes.2. Engage with marketing to measure where the leads are coming fromand how they can assist to drive sales leads so the sales team canfocus on moving business through the sales funnel
 
3. Ensure your sales managers are great leaders and sales coaches asopposed to “super salesman” who close business for their teammembers4. Ensure you have a sales prccess and this process is adoptedthroughout the organisation no excuses.5. Benchmark your best people and ensure that the practices of your bestpeople are transferred to your newer sales people regularly.
Is this a good time to review my sales process
?The first point is that you need to have a sales process. A sales process isa documented, proven set of steps that a sale will typically follow fromlead generation through to follow up post sale review of the desiredsolution.When the economy slows this typically results in longer sales cycles, morebuyers being involved per sale and additional cashflow impacts. It is inthese times that a disciplined and robust sales process will pay dividends.In winning sales organisations they have three key areas of sales process:1. A sales process for creating an opportunity2. A sales process for managing opportunities3. A sales process for retaining for growing accounts wonSo in a down economy this is a good time to either adopt a sales process,adhere to the one you have or review your sales process to improve itseffectiveness.
Should we be cutting back on marketing and focusing on puresales?
The two most important roles of today’s professional sales person is tokeep their sales funnel full and to close business that is ready to buy.Keeping the sales funnel full means undergoing a consistent leadgeneration process and this is where marketing assists. The role ofmarketing should be the acquisition of sales ready leads from newprospects and new leads from within existing accounts. If marketing hasthis role then they are integral to the sales process as they are responsiblefor keeping the sales funnel full. Why in this case would you cut back yourmarketing?In the case above marketing can be measured for its effectiveness withvariables such as cost per lead, cost per conversion and sales cyclelength for example.The problem for too many organisations is that marketing is not measuredand is also not engaged with the sales force meaning that while sales
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