What's Wrong With Sales?

We do a lot of work in owner managed businesses who take huge pride (quite rightly) in the product and service that they have initiated/originated and also their ability to meet their customers’ requirements by delivering that product or service in exactly the timeframe that the customer requires – i.e. ‘service, second to none’. However, our question is…

 ‘Are you getting the revenue and profit that your product and service deserves?’ In many, many cases that we see this is not the case. Why?

Simply put, too little attention is placed on effective Marketing and in particular professional and meaningful selling. We are convinced that part of the reason for this is that Sales, for many people not familiar with how professional salespeople sell, is a ‘dirty’ word. It conjures up mental images from many years ago of the individual on the doorstep trying to sell you a broom or something you just don’t need, they are fast talkers, keep talking at you and try, try, try to close the sale as they really don’t have much time. These days it is more likely to be that irritating telephone call asking if you have ever had ‘PPI cover’ – just as annoying and activity that we ‘really don’t want to associate with’. This creates a mental barrier to anything sales related, means that this vital area is not looked at anywhere near closely enough and millions of pounds of sales and profits within the SME sector are missed or ‘frittered’ away.Put another way, if your sales team are not working with professional selling techniques and tools in your market you will be losing out. If your sales team talk a lot you probably are missing out on key customer requisites that your business could satisfy.

One of the key qualities of top salespeople isn’t their ability to talk but rather their ability to listen. They listen actively after asking appropriate questions that encourage their customer to provide valuable information that they can then act on. All professional salespeople also follow a very sensible call structure featuring important areas like Preparation, Pre Call Check, Persuasive and Effective Presentations, Closing on Action and effective Follow Up/ Communication. Their objective isn’t always to ‘close that sale’ but rather build a productive and profitable relationship with their customer. They think longer term and not just short term.

The top selling organisations – Procter & Gamble, Mars, Dyson, Google, Microsoft all put a lot of emphasis on how effectively their sales team sell. They reap handsome rewards in optimal sales as a result.

How much are you missing in ‘lost’ or ‘never had a look in’ – sales? 25% - 50% is not uncommon. By fixing the problem you could add 25% - 50% in additional sales and margin. How many ￡’s could that put in your Company’s bank account? The techniques and tools that the best businesses use are out there – getting hold of them and training them in could transform your business.

To see how we might help,

give us a call on: 0116 232 5231

or contact us at;

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