You’ve got a sales problem. Or do you?

I speak with a lot of business owners about sales and business development more broadly.

Oftentimes, I’m approached by a concerned owner saying “I’ve got a sales problem and need help!”.?

We then look at what’s going on and while sales processes may be less than optimal (or non-existent), that often isn’t the crux of the problem.

How so?

Even the best at sales are going to struggle with a flow of the wrong type of prospects!

For the majority of business owners I speak with, yes we can improve conversion rates, and sometimes significantly. However, what really changes the game is when you’re pulling the right kind of people into your world.

What are the right kind of people?

It’s tempting to say, well you tell me! But if we start with the basics, and this is assuming you’re working closely with your customers:

Are they genuinely interested in your service/product?

Why, and why now specifically?

Are they able to do something about that interest - are they in a position to make a purchasing decision for the right product or service they believe will help them get their outcome?

Are they someone you actually want to work with? Because let’s be honest, there are a lot of people out there you’d rather not talk with daily!

There are more factors, but if we start with those, then look at the people your marketing’s attracting (or not), is there a match?

Or are you pulling through a random set of people and swinging wildly, hoping to hit something?

You can stack the deck for you, or against.?

So in fixing a ‘sales problem’, we want to look at the bigger picture.?

If you’re looking to grow your business, or just bake in some stability, these are my big 5 elements, none of which have to be overly complicated:

• Marketing - Right people/demographic, right message, product/service positioning
• Sales Process and Calls- You’ve got to know how to convert conversations to clients at an appropriate closing rate. It’s about more than the sales interaction.
• Delivery - Having done all this work, you’ve got to produce the goods and actually do the thing you promised. This takes more effort than you might think because some people need help to take action/implement/understand and this doesn’t make them a ‘shitty customer’. You need data to help you with this task, see last bullet.
• Retention/Continuation/Ascension - Unless you like filling a leaky bucket, you’re going to want to ensure clients fulfill the terms of the contract (duration) and have such a great experience they want to continue their journey, set new goals etc. It may also be that you have a higher value offer/service that they could transition to. This doesn’t happen magically. It takes planning, customer care and delivery!
• Systems and Processes - Stop working in the dark and start tracking your data. How marketing translates into engagement, sales, customers. How customers are doing, where are they in their journey, what issues are they having and when should you be having continuation/ascension conversations? That’s before we get into financials.

If you can put this together in basic but functional terms, you’ll find things start to gain stability, predictability, and you’ll have the ability to scale your business in the way you want it.

If you’d like to chat about how to make this a reality for you and your business, drop me a message here on LinkedIn.

Andrew