Selling to the Company Objectives

“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” – Zig Ziglar

When you’re designing your sales and marketing plan, you have to be mindful that the plan has you on the path to deliver on your intentions. But whose intentions are we talking about? The individual salesperson? Or the company as a whole?

A good salesperson must work a marketing plan for both sets of objectives. It’s important to stay on top of our personal goals and sales targets. But in so doing, a responsible salesperson will align his actions with the company’s intentions. And management has a responsibility to clearly communicate the corporate intentions so that salespeople can deliver.

Here are some examples of company objectives that should be part of every sales and marketing plan:

How many clients do we want? - Depending on your product or service and the resources you have available, companies can determine how many clients they can accommodate and still provide a good level of service. The company should be looking to grow, but within the realm of what they can handle.

What are their industry characteristics? – Companies need to identify the characteristics of their ideal clients and make it clear to the sales staff what kinds of prospects they should pursue. There is such a thing as a bad sale. You don’t want to chase clients that will be high maintenance and not be a fit for your company’s business model.

What is your product or service offering? - Be clear about what you can provide. Do your salespeople understand how your product or service answers the concerns of your target market? Are they selling the right thing to the right people?

What research are we going to do about those prospects? – Can we track their purchasing history? Who they currently buy from? Any “impending events”; mergers, downsizing, or product launches that change the landscape for potential sales? What do you need to know about your prospects in order to successfully sell to them? Where do you find that information?

How are we going to approach these prospects? – Phone calls? Emails? Newsletters? Bumping into them at networking events? Depending on your line of business, the approach may vary by customer. Determine the most appropriate approach for your targets, and be sure your sales staff is well versed on how to reach out.

A winning sales and marketing plan blends the vision of the company with that of the individual salesperson. The plan needs to be a win-win for both, providing clarity and creativity that will set your company apart from the competition. If you need help aligning company and individual objectives, give us a call. We’ll support you with proven, successful techniques that will get you closer to your intended result.

Are you ready to win?

Designing Your Sales and Marketing Plan

“Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.” – Henry Ford

In previous blogs, we’ve talked about the key elements of a sales and marketing plan, and how to start designing one. In this post, we will look at the nuts and bolts of designing the plan, so roll up your sleeves and let’s get started!

Create a List of Potential Clients - You have already defined your conditions of satisfactions for who you want to do business with. Now take that list and find companies that fit those characteristics. There are numerous online resources like Jigsaw, Manta and ZoomInfo where you can learn more about company revenues, number of employees, locations and industries. Individual company websites are obviously full of information. Put together a list, preferably on an Excel spreadsheet, of your potential clients, and rank them in order of their probability of buying your product. Try to put 100 names on this list.

Identify Your Prospects’ Concerns - Why do the people on your list need your product? One of my contacts recently told me that she looks for people who have “imminent events” on the horizon, things like a move, downsizing, a new product launch, an expansion, etc. Those are the things that cause companies to re-evaluate suppliers and needs. Maybe they need more phones, more computers, more file cabinets. If you sell those things, you can find companies in transition who have needs for those services. For every contact on your list, make a note of why they need your product or service.

Determine How Your Product Solves the Customer’s Concerns – This is the logical next step in the process. Next to each customer, make a note of which of your products or services fit their needs and why. The “why” is important because it is the thinking behind what distinguishes you from your competition. It’s not just why they need file cabinets; it’s why they need your file cabinets.

How Will You Approach the Prospects? – Look at your list and determine the best way to reach out. Is it a phone call? An e-newsletter? A LinkedIn invite? Some of this work may require educated guessing, but it pays to plan your strategy in advance. Think about the industries you are targeting and how they tend to deal with vendors. Your approach may be another way to set yourself apart, but if you are working with clients who have very set rules about dealing with vendors, it pays to follow those rules.

Review Your Budget – Now that you have a list of potential clients and ideas for approaching them, do you have the resources to execute your plan? It’s not just money; it’s time and energy as well. Do you need additional staff to reach out to your prospect list? Review your marketing budget to make sure it aligns with your list of actions. If not, decide where you can delegate tasks or add resources to deliver on your plan.

Your marketing plan should be a living document, not just ideas in your head. You should constantly have a visual track record of who your prospects are, what you are doing to meet them, and how your company is a fit. Find time in your calendar daily or weekly to review your lists and keep pressing toward your objectives. Before you know it, you will have a viable, targeted pool of possibilities with a high probability of doing business with you. And that is a winning proposition!

Are you ready to win?

Starting Your Marketing Plan

“Our success is a direct result of knowing how to market a brand and having the right people representing the brand.” – Greg Norman – Professional Golfer and Entrepreneur

We all know we need to have a sales and marketing plan if we expect to meet our sales objectives. Last week we talked about the key elements of a Sales and Marketing plan. But what’s the best way to get started on a designing a system that will generate results?

Perform a SWOT Analysis. Your SWOT analysis will show you what’s working now and what resources you currently have to begin a disciplined marketing plan. The SWOT analysis shows you where you need to expend extra resources and where you can hit the ground running.

Define Your Conditions of Satisfaction for a Client. Who is your ideal customer? Who needs your product or service? What are your minimum orders? What tolerance do you have for high-maintenance customers? Take time to get clear on who you want to be doing business with and who you’re going to pass on. Not all sales are good sales.

Create a Marketing Budget. How much do you have to spend on marketing? And over what period of time? Based on your ideal client profile, what are the best avenues for reaching out to those clients? With the funds you have available, can you reach enough people to achieve your sales intention? Do you need to look for additional resources for marketing? How can you creatively stretch your budget, for instance, aligning with complimentary service providers and sharing some advertising costs?

Determine How Many Hours You Will Commit. Your marketing budget isn’t just financial. You also have to budget your time and commit to how many hours a week you will devote to networking, phoning, blogging, or whatever marketing activities will yield results. These hours have to be scheduled into your calendar, and you have to show up.

Get the Right People on Your Marketing Bus. If you don’t have enough time to market, consider hiring some part time help or delegating some marketing tasks to your staff. That being said, you need to make sure you’ve got the right people reaching out to prospects and contacts. Not everyone enjoys or is well-suited to marketing. Be sure to communicate your intentions and create a common vision that is shared by your whole team. If one person is not generating results, reorganize tasks or hire someone else.

Once you have the building blocks in place, your marketing plan will be much easier to implement. Taking these initial steps will ensure that you are pursuing the right kinds of clients and using your resources wisely. The key here is to make sure your sales intentions are always at the top of your mind, and remain the driving force behind your budget, time and marketing decisions. When you put the right kind of gas in the car, you have a much better chance of winning the race!

Are you ready to win?

Keys to a Sales and Marketing Plan

“Everyone lives by selling something.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Over the past couple of months, this blog has focused on helping you develop specific and measurable intentions for your business. Now we want to shift gears, and talk more about delivering on those intentions. What actions do you need to take to create more sales, which will increase your revenue, which will ultimately increase your profits and keep your company viable?

The first step is to have a sales and marketing plan. It’s important to take the time to create a plan for where and how you are going to generate sales. Otherwise you will waste valuable time and resources throwing darts at a vague map on the wall instead of finding the prospects who have the greatest likelihood of buying your product.

There are some key elements of any sales and marketing plan that are essential guidelines for your strategy:

The Sales and Marketing Plan must align with your intentions. You have put a lot of effort into creating specific intentions that are going to drive your company to your desired results. Your sales and marketing plan needs to tie into those intentions. Design your marketing actions so that you are pursuing the kinds of clients that will give you what you want. When you look at your sales and marketing plan, ask yourself, “Will this plan be the path to me achieving what I set out to do?”

The plan must include both sales and marketing actions. You simply can’t have one without the other. If all you do is sell without spending time researching the best prospects or the best approach, you will waste a lot of time and effort on people who likely are not a fit for your product or service. Likewise, if all you do is marketing research, and never go out to make a sale, well it’s easy to see where that will lead…no sales.

Marketing is the process of creating opportunities for sales. It’s important to remember that sales and marketing are two distinct actions. Marketing is the set of activities that help us find good potential clients. Marketing includes networking, internet research, sending newsletters, hosting webinars; any action that can put you in proximity to the people who have a need for your product or service.

Sales is the process of having conversations with people who have the possibility of buying your product. Sales involves talking with pre-qualified prospects, listening to their concerns, and creating a vision for how your product or service answers their concerns. Sales is not an intrusion. Sales is your opportunity to solve someone’s problem, and show how your company is the best choice now and in the future.

Sales and Marketing must both be scheduled in your calendar. You schedule dentist appointments and plane flights and you show up. Likewise, sales and marketing actions need to be firmly programmed into your calendar, and you have to show up! Just thinking about sales and marketing is not going to yield results. Those who spend time every day on sales and marketing are the ones who have the highest probability of delivering on their revenue and profit intentions.

We will delve deeper into sales and marketing plans in upcoming blogs. But don’t wait to take action. Start designing your sales and marketing plan today and finding where in your calendar those actions will show up. Because those who plan for success will be the ones who win the game of business.

Are you ready to win?