Re-Engineer Sales
How do we balance the utter joy of winning the big deal with the terrible anxiety of wondering where the next deal is coming from?
Most businesses get started by winning: by convincing another business to buy their stuff, and then they service the hell out of that early client. After the early inebriation of "Hey, we're actually going to make it...", their challenge quickly becomes how to replicate that winning with lots and lots of clients.
That challenge then turns to marketing and branding: how to present the company in a compelling, consistent way to lots of prospects, using lots of channels. But how much to spend? And what's working and what's not?
OutsiderMD works with its clients to re-engineer selling into a more reliable process. Much of this early work focuses on transforming sales from talented, charming people into a system that ensures they're calling on the right prospects, saying the right thing, managing the selling pipeline well, and using their business network fully.
It's hard to find an improvement that hits the bottom line as hard. Have a quick look at our thinking in this area:
Building a better selling machine
Getting a better return on your marketing spend
1. Building a better selling machine
OutsiderMD is often utilised by its clients to create better sales machines. Many small businesses have structured their selling efforts with an extraordinarily high dependency on the skills of their owners and executives. A different machine needs to be built, clear and simple enough for a team to operate it at a high level of reliability.
OutsiderMD clients represent a broad range of selling expertise, some with complex sales systems and processes. Even with these processes in place, however, it is very easily to lose sight of how to measure, adjust, tune, and pivot. This is where we come in.
Often, of course, the machine needs to be redesigned and rebuilt while it is running. This requires a subtle, confidential, sometimes quiet process. We can move quickly, because we focus on the fundamentals:
- Are the right sales targets being set?
- What will convert current sales efforts into a unique selling machine for the business, and how can the machine be so well-design that others can operate it?
- What is the current sales pipeline process, and how is it managed to hit sales targets consistently?
- How are sales data reported on? How rigorous are sales meetings?
- Can the quality of the entire business be utilised better in selling process?
- Are all aspects of how the business is presented of consistently high quality? Is selling and marketing language clear and effective – from elevator pitches to full-on presentations and proposals?
- Are sales reps fully trained and supported?
- Are we really customer-centric?Are we fully focussed on our clients and do we regularly ask them for constructive feedback?
- Are references being utilised as a big part of your selling process?
- How is the selling process itself measured and tuned? Why do we lose when we lose, and what does that tell us?
2. Getting a better return on your marketing spend
Marketing is, of course, a critical aspect of any great selling system, but it can be expensive, so you want to be sure you’re getting a good return on your investment.
- Are all appropriate digital media assets used appropriately, including social media?
- How visible is the business in the appropriate markets? Is web presence optimal, and marketing collateral working?
- Is the business using the right channels to get to its markets?
- Is there a clear and unique selling proposition (USP)?
- Are the most basic product/service directions questions being asked?
- Are we selling what our markets want?
- Are we ahead of our industry’s change curve?
- Have we really investigated other ways our IP can be utilised?
- Have we really investigated how to take our advantages in our current markets into new markets?
Now... Where to go from here? Take a minute to call or text us on +61427788777 or email (mickey.clark@outsidermd.com) to see if this is the right time to get started…
“I have known Mickey for a number of years in various roles – as a business partner, as a competitor, and more recently as a mentor.
He has always been great at offering sage advice and providing clear and understandable requests and guidance.
His skills in the areas of business acumen and leadership, as well as sales management, have assisted me in becoming an entrepreneur, a business owner and a successful business leader.”