consulting 2 win with the business/life playbook

Taking Aim at Performance Targets

2011-11-17T10:38:00.001-08:00

“Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to win.” – Coach Bob Knight

Have you hit your performance target for this year? Are you concerned that it’s too late to impact your results? This time of year, the opportunity for generating new business often diminishes. People are focused on the holidays and finishing projects, and less so on negotiating new deals. For sales people, if they haven’t already met their goals, it’s sometimes difficult to make it to the finish line.

No matter where you are in relationship to your targets, there are still things you can do to generate more sales. Now is a great time of year to put together a specific sales action plan. You can test the plan between now and the end of the year, and be ready to hit the ground running in January.

The key to creating a successful action plan is to have enough actions in it to insure you reach your goals! It may sound simplistic, but many salespeople underestimate the number of tasks they should be performing each week if they are going to hit their targets.

We use the 95% rule when we help clients create definitive action plans. Start by making a list of every action you need to take to get what it is you want. If your sales goal is $1MM, what has to happen to generate that much business? Do you need to make 5 sales per month? How many sales calls? How many presentations? How many follow up calls? Break down the sales goal into a series of actions.

Once you have your list, look it over carefully. If you complete everything on the list, will you be confident about reaching your target? We tell our clients that they need enough actions on the list to insure a 95% chance of meeting the goal. If the actions on your list will only get you an 80% chance of meeting your goal, you need to add more actions to the list.

The action plan is an opportunity to start thinking about what exactly needs to happen. Imagine you have met your target. How did you get there? What had to happen on a monthly basis? Weekly? Reverse engineer the goal and get specific about what has to happen every week to make it a reality.

Next time we’ll talk about how to put the plan into action. Because you can’t have an action plan without taking action. You have to play if you want to win the game.

Are you ready to win?

Is the Target in Your Sights?

2011-11-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up somewhere else.” – Yogi Berra, American Baseball Player

Last week we started a conversation about how to finish the year strong and meet those 2011 sales goals. This week we’re going to dig a little deeper into one of the most important, yet frequently overlooked concepts that impacts success in sales.

At Possibilities Unlimited, we believe in being specific and measurable. Whether it’s personal intentions or a management mandate, every goal should be designed and communicated as clearly and specifically as possible. This is good for both employees and employers, as it clearly marks the playing field and defines the rules of the game.

All too often, the benchmarks of success are muddy at best. New employees are told they will be evaluated on “how much business they bring in,” “being a team player,” and “outperforming last year’s results.” These are all valid measures of performance, but they are not specific. And when the goal is not specific, the employee will make up his own version of what those goals mean.

For instance, if an employee is told he needs to outperform last year in order to make his bonus, he doesn’t know by how much he needs to exceed last year’s results. By 5%? 10%? We’ve worked with salespeople who will meet those minimum distinctions by September 30^th. If there is no clear incentive to do more, they will back off the sales effort, or hold off booking deals until the next year. If they hit what they perceive to be the target, they will stop taking aim.

With only a few weeks left in 2011, it is imperative to know what your targets are and how close you are to hitting them. How much distance do you need to cover? How do you need to schedule your time so that you can meet that target? Where do you need to step on the gas, and where have you already won the game? It’s hard to hit a bulls-eye when the target is fuzzy or moves around.

A good employer will create precise and measurable benchmarks so that every employee knows what is expected. Write down at least ten specific things that would tell you this person is doing a good job. Talk it over with the employee so there is no misunderstanding about the expectations. A good employee will ask for specifics, and ask the employer to define goals and objectives. The players have to know where the goal line is if they want to have any chance of scoring. And it’s the well managed team that will score more points and win the game.

Are you ready to win?

Two Months and Counting

2011-10-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

“The bad news is, times flies. The good news is, you’re the pilot.” Michael Altshuler – Entrepreneur

There are only two months left in 2011, and if you are like many salespeople, you are looking closely at those sales goals you set back in January, and wondering how you are going to make it.

Depending on your industry circumstances, and your sales cycle, you may be able to make your numbers and you may not. But no matter where you find yourself on the path to meeting your targets, there are things you can do to make the most of the time you have left, and set yourself up for a winning 2012.

The first task is to make sure you have a specific target. Do you have a set revenue goal? Is it set by you or by your employer? If you are setting goals for yourself, make them specific and measurable. “Make more money” is not a definitive line in the sand. You need a specific target so you know where to aim your efforts.

Next you have to be certain of where you are now. How much distance is between you and your target? How often are you monitoring your progress? Equate that distance to the number of tasks you must complete to reach the goal. How many new clients? How many sales calls?

We coach our clients to aim higher than the actual target. If you need 10 new accounts, be talking to 15 prospective customers. If you need $100,000 in new sales, work on making $120,000. You’ll have a much higher probability of hitting your goal if you are in action to exceed it.

Create a list of actions that, when complete, will get you what you want. Don’t worry if there are too many things on the list. Just create a list of everything you would need to do to get to the goal. 25 sales calls a week. 5 written proposals. 2 product deliveries a week. Make sure that when you look at this list, the tasks would give you a 95% chance of hitting your target. If your list would only get you to 75% of your goal, add more things to the list.

Put those tasks in your calendar. Setting appointments with yourself to accomplish tasks greatly improves the likelihood of you accomplishing them. Your calendar is everything when it comes to meeting your goals. Put your tasks into the calendar and show up.

Create an existence system for your plan. What motivates you to stay on track? A visual reminder of your progress? Working with a team member? Our clients find that working with a coach is the best way to hold themselves accountable to their intentions. A weekly conversation with a coach goes a long way to staying on top of the tasks that will deliver results.

Over the next few weeks, we will explore these ideas in greater detail, and help you structure a plan for winning the game in 2011 and beyond.

Are you ready to win?

A Culture of Character

2011-08-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

“I believe it is the nature of people to be heroes, if given the chance.” – James A. Autry, Author and Businessman

This week’s blog is a brief departure from our discussions about sales and profitability. Instead I want to examine a facet of corporate culture, and invite your thoughts and comments.

Last week I vacationed in Indiana, my home state, and I was in Indianapolis when the Sugarland stage rigging collapsed into the State Fair crowd, killing five and injuring dozens. It all happened in a matter of seconds, and many people became trapped underneath the shattered structure.

Hundreds of concertgoers immediately rushed toward the scene, and instinctively worked together to lift and hold up the rigging so others could climb underneath and drag the wounded to safety. Let me re-state, they ran toward the trouble, not away from it. The skies were dark and ominous. Officials had acknowledged storm warnings in the area. These are people who are not strangers to violent weather, and I’m sure more than a few wondered if tornadoes were headed their way.

And yet they stayed, and they helped, and they did whatever they could to assist the authorities and medical personnel who quickly descended upon the scene. Because of the heroism of these “regular folks”, countless victims were rescued, received medical treatment faster than they otherwise would have, and were comforted during the ordeal. In his remarks the following morning, Governor Mitch Daniels stated, “That’s the character we associate with our state. People don’t have to be paid to do it.”

Does the culture at your company mirror this commitment to character? All too often management and employees fall into a habit of pointing fingers when things go wrong. They look around for scapegoats. Instead of putting forth 100% effort, they try to get by with as little effort as possible and still get a paycheck. They run from the trouble, not to the trouble. How many times have you raised a customer service issue, only to be told, “That’s not my job,” “I don’t know,” or “There’s nothing I can do?”

Shifting a corporate culture from one of apathy to one of commitment can be like turning the Titanic. But the result is a high-performance business whose employees are invested in the company’s success and are certain of their roles in it. This kind of culture needs to be bred not only from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Companies large and small can learn a lot from the good people of Indiana. What can you change about your business to inspire employees to run “toward the trouble?” How would that mindset that impact your customers, your bottom line, yourself?

We’d like our readers to tell us something about their impressions of corporate culture at their companies. You can email me at leeann@consulting2win.com or simply post a comment below. Our shared ideas may facilitate a shift toward a commitment to character, which is the foundation of a winning business.

Are you ready to win?

Let's Talk About Profit

2011-06-12T17:44:00.001-07:00

“I don’t want to do business with those who don’t make a profit, because they can’t give the best service.” – Richard Bach, American Author

Profit is the oxygen of any business. If your business is not making profit, you have a hobby, not a business. We all go into business for a reason, and if you want to fulfill your purpose for having a business, your business must be profitable. Profit is what allows a company to expand and stay viable. Profit allows the company to contribute back to the community, to research better ways of doing things, to explore and experiment in ways that benefit us all.

How do you know if your business if profitable or not? Successful business owners know that they have to regularly monitor several key profit measurements if they want to know how well the business is performing. Too often, business owners don’t take the time to study profit indicators. They figure that if the accountant is still able to write checks, they are still in business. They don’t have time to look at the math and determine what is and isn’t working.

When you’re not on top of your profit numbers, you are likely missing opportunities to increase your profit. Many businesses can increase profit substantially just by making a few quick changes to the systems they have in place. And in this economy, no one should be leaving profit on the table if it’s right there for the taking.

Profit margins and ratios provide a comprehensive and current snapshot of the company’s bottom line. They quickly point to bottlenecks in your production system and what part of the business is costing more than it should. Every company should have profit targets they work toward and periodic reviews to see how close or far they are from those targets.

Profit margins, such as gross profit and net profit, show the company’s ability to turn sales into profit. The business does a certain amount of sales and generates a certain amount of revenue. How much of that revenue falls through to the bottom line is an indication of how well the company is being run.

Return ratios determine the company’s overall efficiency. Efficient companies keep cost of goods and operating expenses under control, allowing them to convert more revenue into profit.

Companies should also evaluate customer profitability. Do you have some high maintenance clients that cost you more than you make on them? Monitoring customer profitability allows companies to better define who their ideal clients are and how to effectively and profitably manage them.

Next week, we’ll dig into the math and calculate some actual profit margins and explain what they mean to a company’s success. In the meantime, consider how well your business monitors profit. Are you confident that you are meeting your targets? Or are you just guessing at your bottom line? If you want your business to win, you’ve got to know how to keep score.

Are you ready to win?

Delivery System Follow Through

2011-06-02T09:01:00.001-07:00

“Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” – Walt Disney

We’ve been focusing the last few blogs on delivery systems. How does your company get your product to the customer quickly, profitably, and with a high level of quality? Getting the product out the door is, of course, one of the most important aspects of doing business. But what about follow up? What happens after the product has been delivered?

All too often, companies move on to the next delivery without seeing the process through and insuring that customer expectations have been met. Failure to implement post-delivery protocols can easily result in dissatisfied and confused customers who don’t know where to turn for help.

Here are some keys to managing your deliveries beyond the hand-off to the customer. Remember, when we talk about deliveries, we’re talking about any product, service, or project that your company sells.

Responsibility – Who on your team is responsible for the product after the customer receives it? Is it the salesperson? Customer service? The production team? It’s important to clarify who the customer should have as a point person for any questions or concerns they have once the product is in their hands.

Follow Up – Do you have a plan in place for following up with the customer? If not, you risk not knowing if the product made it to them at all, if they are happy with it, or what you can do to fix any problems with the order. A simple system for following up with a phone call or appointment can greatly improve the customer experience and help you to avoid unnecessary upsets. Follow up calls can also be an opportunity to upsell the customer with complimentary services.

Returns – What is your return policy? Is it clear and easy for the customer to understand? Does the customer know who to contact or how soon he must voice a complaint? Does your policy allow for enough customer leeway in getting what they want? Too much leeway? How does your return policy affect your product profitability?

Re-Orders – If you sell a product that customers need to purchase repetitively, do you make the re-order process clear and easy to understand? Is someone at your company responsible for following up and asking for re-orders? Do you offer incentives for customers who want to re-order within a certain amount of time or at a certain volume?

What’s Working?/What Isn’t? – Ultimately, the key to any delivery system’s success is oversight. Management must consistently review what’s working and what isn’t. From the customer’s standpoint, the delivery of your product or service should be effortless. A good customer experience is essential if you want to retain clients and obtain new ones. Your delivery system should not allow for repeated bottlenecks, errors or breakdowns. Consistent monitoring of your system will insure that problems can be addressed quickly and efficiently, making the customer feel like a winner for having done business with you.

Always remember that your client relationship doesn’t stop when the product reaches their front door. Developing a strategy for leveraging off a job well done will result in happier customers, more orders and an excellent reputation in the marketplace. And that’s a great way to win the game of business.

Are you ready to win?

Delivery System Quality

2011-05-23T12:18:00.001-07:00

“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.” – Peter F. Drucker, Renowned Management Expert

We’ve been focusing this blog series on delivery systems – how your company gets your product or service to the customer. A good delivery system will be efficient and have the appropriate amount of capacity to handle your production needs. But what about quality? It doesn’t matter if you have the most efficient and cost-effective system on the planet. If you are delivering an inferior product or something that doesn’t meet the customer’s expectations, you will quickly lose sales, as well as your reputation.

If you haven’t analyzed your delivery system from a quality control standpoint, you should. Here are some things to evaluate and consider:

What is Your Commitment to Quality? – If you want to deliver a quality product, you have to be committed to doing just that. Does your company have a clear vision of how you define quality? Are management and staff aligned on that vision? Do they define quality the same way? Take the time to create a mission statement for quality in your production system.

Who Is Responsible for Quality? – The responsibility for quality should be shouldered by everyone in the company. That being said, the customer should have a point person to call whenever there are questions about products or services they’ve received. Don’t ever make the customer call every department in your shop trying to figure out who can “make it right.” Do they call their sales rep? Do they have an account manager? Make sure the lines of communication are well-established within your production system.

What Quality Control Measures Do You Have in Place? – You do have some, don’t you? In short, how does your production and delivery team know if they are producing the product correctly and to the customer’s specifications? Are there checks at several points on the production line? Have these quality specifications been clearly communicated to the production team? Do they have any input or ideas on how to improve quality?

Are They Sufficient? – You should have a clear target of what percentage of errors you are willing to allow for in your production line. Each person on the line should be well aware of what they need to do to meet those performance measurements. If you have Quality Control measures in place, but you are still delivering products that are underwhelming your clients, you may need to add more quality control checks to the delivery system. Assess what your system currently allows for. Late delivery? Insufficient packaging? Incomplete orders? Find out where you need to tighten controls and set performance targets for your team in those areas.

How Do You Handle Breakdowns in Quality? – Do you involve the whole team and look for a better way to make the product? Do you assess where the bottleneck or breakdown occurred and make changes to improve the process? Who manages these breakdowns with the customer? Does the customer feel as though they are getting good customer service, even when something goes wrong? How much are these breakdowns costing you?

It’s important to remember that delivery systems aren’t just for companies producing widgets. Service providers need to consistently monitor quality if they want to deliver quality consulting or creative services. Even if you aren’t producing a physical product, you are delivering a project or service that needs to meet your client’s expectations. Quality goes a long way toward good word of mouth and repeat business and can be the difference between winning and losing in the customer’s eyes.

Are you ready to win?

Delivery System Efficiency

2011-04-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

“There can be economy only where there is efficiency.” – Benjamin Disraeli – Famed British Statesman

Last week’s blog focused on delivery system capacity. You must have enough production capacity to produce what you sell. But before you run off and spend precious capital on additional equipment and resources, it’s best to analyze how efficiently your current system is running. An efficient delivery system will yield higher profits without extra expense.

So how do you know if your current delivery system is operating efficiently?

Find the Bottlenecks – Almost every system has a component that slows down the entire production process. The first step is to find those bottlenecks and decide how to handle them. Let’s say you have a production rule that a senior manager has to sign off on all filled orders before they ship. What if that person is out sick or on vacation? How much time does it take to perform this task? Can this job be delegated to someone on the production floor? Can the system generate a report that can be emailed to the manager at certain times in the day? Find your bottlenecks and see if there is any way to eliminate them.

Is the Staff Working at Peak Performance? An efficient system is only as efficient as the people working it. Is your staff giving you 100% effort? Have you studied industry averages for producing your product? How would you know if your people are working hard?

Specific and Measurable Targets – In answer to the previous point, you need specific and measurable production targets in order to tell if your system is efficient. How many units per day? How many orders filled? What measurements can you put in place that would tell you that you are operating at full speed? How often should you measure for them? Good reporting is a hallmark of the efficient delivery system.

Incentives – A good way to keep the production team operating optimally is to have some games or incentives in place to reward them for good performance. If we make our quota of 1,000 units per week, everyone will receive a Starbucks card. Individual goals and quotas are great ways to measure for outstanding performance and identify who really has company interests at heart. A more motivated production staff will tend to be much more efficient, creating more profit for the company in the long run.

Is the Product Profitable? – Are you producing the product as profitably as possible? When was the last time you looked at vendors or re-negotiated materials pricing? Could you be getting your material cheaper? Could you be outsourcing one of your processes that is currently a bottleneck? Is it cheaper to do it somewhere else? An efficient delivery system should maximize the profit potential for the product.

Lots of companies are trying to be lean in these challenging economic times. The best way to approach efficiency is to start by analyzing your current system and looking for ways to improve what’s already there. A re-energized production team that’s clear on the company’s intentions and their role in achieving them is bound to be more efficient and more cost effective. These days, that’s half the battle if you’re going to win the game of business.

Are you ready to win?

Delivery System Capacity

2011-04-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

“The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.” – John D. Rockefeller

One of the most important components of any company’s delivery system is capacity. You can only deliver as much product as your operation can produce, and that capacity threshold will impact not only your profitability, but your sales. It’s crucial that every business owner, manager and sales person understand production capacity. Here are some key things to consider:

Capacity Must Meet Sales Intentions – Sounds simple, but it’s often the Achilles heel of many companies. Management sets sales goal and intentions that far exceed what the production team can physically produce. If you are setting unprecedented sales intentions for your business, you must be prepared to acquire the necessary resources to produce the product at that level. Can your current production system accommodate a sharp increase in demand?

Capacity and Percentage Sold – It’s very important that production and sales meet regularly to monitor available capacity. If your production capacity is 100,000 units per month, and your sales team has already sold 85,000 units, you only have 15% remaining capacity. Another order for 30,000 units will create a backlog that will frustrate customers. Sales and production must always be planning for upcoming orders and how they will fit into the available capacity. Either that, or management must be prepared to do what it takes to increase capacity so that there is no backlog.

Manage to Customer’s Expectation – Your production system must be able to produce product to meet the customer’s expectations in terms of features, timing and service. The sales team should not make a practice of over-promising beyond what production can reasonably deliver. If the customer is expecting 10,000 red and blue units in 7 days, they will not be delighted to hear that they can only receive 7,000 blue units in 10 days. Production has to operate to the customer’s expectation, but sales needs to appropriately communicate that expectation.

Getting the Product Out the Door – It’s one thing to produce 10,000 red and blue units in 7 days, it’s another to get them safely to the customer. Production capacity doesn’t stop with manufacturing the product. Timely physical delivery to the customer is just as important. Do you deliver the product yourself? Do you rely on outsourced shipping? Who is responsible for making sure the product reaches the customer in good shape – sales or production? Your company’s system and capacity for getting the product to the customer as promised is essential for customer satisfaction.

Don’t leave any of these steps to chance. Clearly define delivery responsibilities at every stage of the production process. Consistently monitor your production capacity so that you are prepared for all orders and can anticipate breakdowns in advance. Always advocate for collaborative communication between the sales and production departments. Companies that go the extra mile to meet the customer’s expectations will reap the rewards of repeat business and good word of mouth. And that’s a winning formula for meeting sales and profit goals, even in the most unpredictable of markets.

Are you ready to win?

Designing a Delivery System

2011-04-17T15:24:00.001-07:00

“You have to manage a system. The system doesn’t manage itself.” W. Edwards Deming

Our current blog series focuses on delivery systems. If you can get your product or service into the hands of your customer efficiently and effectively, you are creating an excellent customer experience that will have them coming back for more. As we said last week, you can have the best sales staff in the world, but if you can’t deliver the product, sales becomes meaningless.

So how do you start to design a top notch delivery system? The first step is to determine where you currently stand in terms of getting your product out the door. One of the best tools for analyzing your current system is our old friend the SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis gives you a picture of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and helps you to rate yourself in some key areas:

Production Capacity and Capability – Take some specific measurements of your current system. How many units can you produce in a day? How quickly can you get them out the door? How many production errors do you allow for? How much extra capacity do you have to handle big orders? Is your work flow seasonal? Take time to analyze your capacity and how well your production staff are performing.

Getting Out the Door – How does your team do at getting the product out the door? This is really an efficiency question. Are you getting the product or service from your shop to the customer as quickly as you can? When was the last time you analyzed shipping methods and costs? Are there any gaps in your production process that could be tightened to speed up delivery? Does your company handle physical delivery or do you sub contract it? Who is responsible for making sure the product gets to the customer as promised?

Production Flexibility – This is another key barometer of your delivery system’s success. How flexible is your production system? Can you respond quickly and accurately to special orders? Do you know where you draw the line between what you will and won’t do? And can you measure for how those changes affect your profitability? These are all important questions when designing an effective delivery system.

Sales Flow – What does the path from sales to production to the customer look like? Who is responsible for what along the way? How do you follow up with the customer once the product has been delivered? This flow from the sale to the delivery is critical to the success of the customer experience. And a good customer experience is what improves your chances of repeat business and good word of mouth.

This week take a look at the key components of your delivery system. Analyzing what things are working and what aren’t is the first step toward designing a system that will be cost effective for you and that will meet your customer’s expectations. And we all know that happy customers are a big part of winning the game of business.

Are you ready to win?

Keys to Effective Delivery Systems

2011-04-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

“It is through cooperation, rather than conflict, that your greatest successes will be derived.” – Ralph Charell – Business Book Author

We just completed a series of blogs on sales and marketing plans. A well thought out and executed sales and marketing plan is essential for any business to be profitable. But even the best sales and marketing plan is worthless without a delivery system to back it up. You can sell millions of units of a product, but if you can’t get it to the customer, you are playing a losing game.

How do you develop a delivery system that will appropriately support your sales efforts and seamlessly complete a positive customer experience? Here are a few things to consider when you create your delivery system:

An effective Delivery System requires coordination between Production and Sales to fulfill the customer’s expectation. – This is the essence of the delivery system conversation. Both Production and Sales must be aligned on their commitment to represent the company in the marketplace. They are interdependent players on the same team. Each has a specific role to fill, and they must communicate and work together to make sure the customer is getting what he wants, and when he wants it.

Production must be clear on what is and isn’t possible and communicate that to Sales. – The Production team has a responsibility to the Sales staff to be clear about what is possible. How many units can they produce? How quickly? How much flexibility do they have for special orders? If Sales doesn’t have a grasp of what they can sell, the result will be unhappy customers.

Sales must understand production capabilities and communicate those to the customer. - The follow up to the previous point is that the Sales staff must be able to articulate to the customer what’s possible. Sales should only promise things they are positive that production can deliver.

Both sales and production must be willing to explore creative solutions to customer concerns. – A good delivery system depends on Sales and Production being allies in the effort to produce products and services that customers want and that satisfy customer concerns. Depending on your business, there will always be times when sales and production need to think outside the box. Maybe production can create the product in a special color. Maybe Sales can work with the customer to agree on a delivery schedule that insures a successful and well-made product. Creativity and a willingness to partner together go a long way toward fostering happy client relationships and driving the company to profit.

Have you reviewed your company’s delivery system lately? Are there times when your sales and production teams see themselves as adversaries instead of allies? What can you do to design a delivery system that will insure that the customer is satisfied? If you would like guidance on how to create an effective delivery system, give us a call. We’ll help you find the win-win solution that works best for your company and your customers.

Are you ready to win?

Individual Sales Objectives

2011-04-03T11:53:00.001-07:00

“A salesman minus enthusiasm is just a clerk.” – Harry F. Banks

Sales and Marketing plans need to reflect both company-wide objectives as well as the individual salesperson’s goal numbers. Both corporate and personal goals should align with the company’s profit intentions. Last week’s blog spoke to the company objectives. This week we will look at how to craft a sales and marketing plan for the individual salesperson.

Here are some key elements of a personal sales plan:

Marketing Tasks – Marketing tasks are things like networking, sending e-newsletters, blogging, and doing internet research to find prospects who have a high likelihood of buying your product. Without this kind of legwork, salespeople are hard-pressed to find those ideal clients.

Sales Actions – Sales actions include setting appointments, meeting with clients, preparing proposals, presenting the product, closing deals and following up. Each of these actions must happen consistently, and they must be scheduled into the calendar. Sales people who present proposals, but don’t follow up or close the deal are not going to meet their objectives. Break your sales effort into specific actions like these, and determine where those are going to appear in your calendar.

Accountability System – Salespeople need accountability systems if they want to stay on track to meet their goals. Who holds the salesperson accountable in your company? Is there a sales manager? A production manager? Who is responsible for tracking the progress and offering support to the sales staff? Is that chain of command clear to the salesperson?

Existence System – This is something the salesperson needs in order to be disciplined about performing the sales and marketing actions that will result in sales. The most common and best existence system is a calendar. Scheduling sales and marketing actions into an Outlook calendar gives one a picture of future results. A weekly sales meeting is another kind of existence system, as is a visual chart or graph that plots the salesperson’s progress toward his goals. Existence systems require some discipline, and it’s best if they have visual components that are easy reminders of where you stand.

Proposals – What kind of proposals do you need to have to present to clients? Maybe yours is a simple pricing sheet that you discuss over the phone, or maybe it is a highly detailed and customized PowerPoint presentation that you will deliver to the board of directors. Either way, it’s essential to have your materials prepared and be able to articulate how your product or service will be able to answer the prospect’s concerns.

Ongoing Training and Support – A salesperson should never feel like an island, separate from the company and colleagues and left to sell without direction. Salespeople should continually receive training on product capabilities and new ways to reach out to the marketplace. Salespeople also need to understand where to go for support when customers have complaints, questions or special requests.

The salesperson is often the embodiment of the company’s brand and reputation in the marketplace. Salespeople need clear individual objectives and well established channels for support. Businesses need to manage for personal and corporate objectives so that salespeople can distinguish themselves in the marketplace and deliver on the company sales intentions. A winning plan will yield winning results and will keep your business on the leading edge of the game of sales.

Are you ready to win?

Selling to the Company Objectives

2011-03-29T09:44:00.001-07:00

“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

2011-03-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

“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

2011-03-13T15:19:00.001-07:00

“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

2011-03-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

“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?

Intentions - The Starting Line

2011-02-26T17:41:00.000-08:00

"If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up somewhere else.” – Yogi Berra, American Baseball Great

At Possibilities Unlimited, we spend a lot of time working with people to create specific and measurable intentions for their businesses. Those intentions are the essence, if you will, of your business purpose. In the past several blogs, we have gone over all the different aspects of creating intentions that will propel your business to unprecedented results.

What we’ve done is map a very clear destination for your business. You know where you’re going and what it’s going to be like when you get there. You’ve analyzed your action steps and scheduled them into the calendar. You have taken out a map and highlighted your route. You have programmed your company’s GPS and you are ready to go.

The only thing that’s missing now is the starting point! Before the GPS can figure out the distance to your destination, it has to determine your current location. In business terms, you have to know where you stand and what you have to work with before you can deliver on your intentions.

A SWOT analysis is a great tool for taking stock of what is and isn’t working in your business. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It’s like an inventory of your competitive advantages and your challenges. Taking the time to assess what your company does well and where you need to focus more effort can eliminate a lot of the guesswork in your action plan. The SWOT analysis also clarifies where you have ample resources and where you may need to devote capital to become or stay competitive.

Our previous blog on SWOT analyses details the concepts and questions to ask yourself when assessing your “current location.” It’s important to conduct SWOT analyses on a regular basis because the external components, Opportunities and Threats, change with the economy, trends, competition and other factors outside of your control.

Once you’ve done your SWOT analysis, you are ready to start your journey toward the fulfillment of your business intentions. You will have a very clear picture of the path ahead, and exactly what it will take to get there. To win any race, you have to show up at the start.

Are you ready to win?

On the Mountaintop

2011-02-18T16:52:00.000-08:00

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch

Our past few blogs have centered on the concept of specific and measurable intentions for your business. From creating them to using them, to keeping them alive, delivering on intentions is hard but worthwhile work. It’s always possible to have big dreams come true, but when the goal seems very far away, it’s sometimes challenging to take those first steps toward it. We can be afraid that it’s just too big for us, or that that we are not deserving, or that there’s no way we have the knowledge, skills or resources to deliver.

If you have done the work of creating your intentions and scheduling actions into your calendar to paint a picture of your path, you are well on your way to getting there. But how do you develop the confidence to get off the dime and get moving?

We ask all our clients to go through an exercise that puts the client into the picture of the finished intention. Here’s how it works:

First, write a letter to yourself or to your coach, as if you are standing in the future, having delivered on your dream. You are on the mountaintop, looking back over the climb. You did it! You made that million dollars, or opened that new location, or took that dream vacation with your family.

Standing in the place of “it’s done”, write down everything that must have happened to get you there. It’s important to note there are no wrong answers. Don’t over-think the exercise, and don’t grade yourself on composition and grammar! Just brainstorm everything that had to happen.

For instance, if your intention was to generate $1mm in revenue – what would you need to make that happen? A new salesperson? Two new computers? Twenty more hours a week in sales? A different supplier or five new product offerings?

This is a place to be creative. Even if you have no idea how you will obtain or learn how to make those things appear, write down what you think must have happened. You’ll soon see the bigger possibilities for taking your company to that next level.

Wanting to make $1mm is a very different thing from being intentional about making it happen. It takes vision, combined with a specific game plan and a very diligent existence system to have it all come true.

From your letter, develop a list of actions that will unquestionably deliver the result you’re looking for. The key is what will unquestionably deliver the result. When you review your list, ask yourself this…if I did everything on this list, what is the probability that I will achieve my intention? 60%? 75%? 95%? If the actions on your list do not yield at least a 95% probability of success, then add more tasks to the list.

Last week we talked about keeping your intentions in existence. This list is an important part of your existence system. We’ll talk more in future blogs about how to use your letter and your list. For now, we want you to imagine yourself at the finish line, having won the game. Because being able to see the possibilities of new future give you the power to make it a reality.

Are you ready to win?

Going the Distance

2011-02-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

“If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.” – Buddhist Proverb

We are about six weeks into the new year, and there are bound to be some of us who have already let go of those New Year’s resolutions. We start with great ideas, the best intentions, but most of us have a difficult time going the distance. Was your resolution to lose ten pounds? Go to the gym three times a week? Spend more time with the kids?

What about your intentions for your business? Were you going to make 25 sales calls each week? Hire a new assistant? Increase profit by 20%? We have been talking about how important it is to set intentions for your business. How you need to have specific and measurable targets that drive your actions throughout the year. But if we keep getting distracted by the fire drills and interruptions that happen every day, those business intentions are likely to go the way of that gym membership.

What is it that stands in the way of us delivering on all those good intentions? We understand what we have to gain by sticking to the program, we know that the payoff could be huge, but we just keep dropping out the actions that will keep us moving toward the goal.

No matter whether you have set intentions for your business or your personal life, the key to delivering on them is a good existence system. Because if you can’t keep your intentions in existence, they will die.

What is an existence system? It is a tool or method you use to determine where your actions are going to occur in time. Everything we do, from getting out of bed in the morning, to landing the big contract that makes our year, occurs in time. If we schedule our actions into time, and into our calendars, we keep those actions in existence, and we have a much higher probability of success.

There are several types of existence systems, but the best is your calendar. Just as you schedule a dentist appointment and show up for it, you must schedule your business actions into your calendar and SHOW UP. Do you need to spend five hours a week in sales? Ten hours finishing a proposal? Twenty hours building a production system for your product? Make appointments for yourself to spend time on these tasks, and then show up for those appointments.

Your calendar then becomes a measurement for your future success, your tool for keeping your intentions alive. The first thing you need to do is make a list of all the actions that need to happen to deliver on your intention. Next, assign a specific amount of time to those actions. Finally, schedule all those hours into the calendar over the next week, month and year. You will begin to see the picture of your future success as you see how these tasks will unfold over time.

But what about interruptions? We hear this all the time. “I can’t just ignore my biggest client when he calls with a problem.” “My boss constantly runs into my office with emergency projects.” Yes, we all are plagued with interruptions that can derail our progress and throw our schedule off kilter. The solution is to schedule time in your calendar every day for interruptions. Maybe it’s an hour, maybe two. If the phone system dies and you need to deal with it right away, move up the hour for interruptions and reschedule your sales call for the open slot in the afternoon. When you schedule time for interruptions, you are less likely to drop out the time you had scheduled to accomplish important tasks.

When it comes time to show up for that sales activity, you should be focused on that and nothing else. It’s amazing how productive you can become when you allow yourself to focus on one task for an hour. Before you know it, you have made significant progress on your intention, just by having it scheduled in your calendar.

Visual displays may sound cheesy, but they go a long way toward keeping your intention in existence. Those fundraiser thermometers are a good example. With a quick glance, you can see how far you’ve come and how much more work you have to do. Set up a reward system along the way. After each key component of your intention is accomplished, reward yourself with a nice dinner or new handbag. Keep the incentives in place, even if you’re only playing against yourself.

This week, create an existence system that allows you to schedule all the actions that need to happen to deliver on your intentions. You may see that you need additional resources to get it all done. Making adjustments and being open to new possibilities is all part of keeping an intention alive.

If you would like support in building a system that will hold you accountable to your intentions, give us a call. We are experts at creating specific plans and systems for staying on the path to success. Because if you are going to win the game of business, you have to go the distance.

Are you ready to win?