Nothing beats.... A Focused Sales Team

There is so much power in having everyone on the rowing boat paddling the same way - heading in the same direction.

Yes, they will have their individual nuances, being mindful of where the finish line is and the dynamics of how to get a boat moving forward is paramount to success.

Many times, when a leader is complaining about their weak pipeline of revenue and the long sales cycle, we ask - "do you have a sales strategy in place, do your salespeople have a sales plan in place aligned to that strategy?".

When the look is blank, or the answer is "no", well there is a place to start. Then we ask, " do you have a defined sales process that everyone follows?" invariably the answer is "no" or "I do not know".

The core fundamentals of an effective sales machine are:

• A Sales strategy

• Sales plans

• A Sales process

• Sales metrics (including sales opportunity scorecard)

A sales strategy does not have to be war and peace – I love using PPT to create this. Where are we now and where do we want to be, what are the objectives and what activities are required to meet these objectives. We also happen to use a great application to make this come alive – StratApp

Sales plans, again, need to be simple – again I like PPT. Each salesperson identifies what existing accounts will provide what revenue, what they need to do and the timing to achieve this. Where the gaps are, then what companies will need to be targeted, to sell what and when – we have a template for this if you are interested.

A sales process – again keep it simple. Working from lead to close, what are the steps and what is needed to happen to get from one stage to the next? – again we have a template we use during a workshop to assist.

Sales metrics – well there are a few. Let us start with a sales opportunity scorecard. Imagine your sales people putting a number against certain criteria to indicate when criteria had been met which would then indicate whether the opportunity had legs or not. – again we have a template we use during a workshop to assist.

Now having templates is great, invariably you need to have someone take people through so they have ownership of the end result – enrolling them – that is where SG Partners comes in – we are really great at this.

If anyone one of these is not in place, well, you do not have a focused team and you will have challenges with your growth aspirations.

And these are really easy to fix - for instance the sales process and scorecard can be reviewed and improved or created within 4 hours - done.