In the current economic climate businesses have to work harder and smarter to not only win new customers but then retain and develop them into high level business. Customers are not willing to part with their money on a whim and are demanding that the products or services they choose to purchase are exceeding their expectations. With tightening margins comes a desire to tighten the purse strings, but could minimising all of your outgoings be a false economy?

Times are tough, that is a given, but in these times companies are having to up their performance, work under growing pressure and gain the competitive edge to succeed. With this in mind the attention should be focusing on customer facing teams to deliver an exceptional level of service and maximise revenue from existing accounts, and on sales teams; encouraging them to look for new opportunities to develop new business.

Sales managers and sales teams drive business success.  In customer relationships these people, together with service teams, are the people that own the brand, enhance reputation and of course generate income. If you are not developing and supporting your people will your competitors be prepared to? The costs of having to recruit new people are far higher than the costs associated with training and progressing the people you already employ. The 2007 CIPD Recruitment, Retention and Turnover Survey reported the average cost of filling a vacancy being between £4333 and £7750. It seems retaining key people is now even more important given the current economic climate.

Training therefore has a major part to play for both businesses and individuals – for the business it means increased performance; for the individual improved job satisfaction and success. Having just a few poor performers within your company can adversely affect the results you achieve and, as importantly, your customers’ opinions of the entire organisation.

What can you do to ensure you have the competitive edge?

1.         Become a motivational leader

If you ask a group of people “What makes a good leader?” you can guarantee one thing about the answer - it will consist of many different thoughts and ideas on the skills of leadership. People who are leaders will talk of vision, example, direction and coaching and people who are followers will talk of motivation, support, help and role models.

So, in the business world, what are the qualities that people need to be a leader?

There is a difference between a manager and a leader:

Leaders – demonstrate a willingness to originate ideas, implement change, challenge the norm, set strategy and provide direction.

Managers – tend to follow established process and routine. They may do it very well, but managers rarely challenge the norm.

A leader needs to be visionary and identify where their company, department or team needs to go. An individual who will create the vision and ensure that everyone understands where they are going and why. A leader needs to understand markets, customers, opportunities and threats to ensure they achieve long term success.

Outstanding leaders encourage their people, demanding the best of them at the same time as being able to create a motivational environment, retain key staff and attract the correct new staff.

A motivational leader is results driven, is prepared to reward, challenge, correct and discipline staff. Motivational leaders make coaching a way of life, encouraging new skills and behaviours in an environment that allows people to learn by their mistakes. It is prudent to bear in mind that people will remember:

·         10%-20% of what they hear

·         50%-70% of what they see, and

·         90%+ of what they do.

2.         Improve your sales management skills to maximise your team’s results

In today’s highly competitive business environment the question that is always on the tip of the sales manager’s tongue is, ‘How can we gain the competitive edge?’

There are two key areas to look at:

·         Operational Efficiency – how the sales force operates on a day to day basis.

·         Operational Effectiveness – the skills to do the job.

Leading sales organisations have consistently proved that by improving operational efficiency, the sales force can generate increases in revenue of between 4%-10%. This may mean changes in established business practice, making some tough decisions and dealing with resistance to change. However, think about your own sales force – do you make optimum use of sales time, could you manage more sales cycles, could you increase the value of the sales cycles you manage and could you close more deals? All of these generate increases in sales – the first step is always operational efficiency.

Operational effectiveness demands that the sales manager and sales people are consistently looking at how they can improve their skill sets. No business can stand still, and year on year there are demands to improve performance. This means that:

·         Sales People and Account Managers are challenged to deliver more – do they ‘get lucky’ ‘work harder’ or ‘improve their skill sets’.

·         Sales Managers – have to identify the skill sets their people need and then coach and develop the team to deliver performance.

It is really simple, any organisation is only be as good as the people who work for it, so the sales manager has an ongoing responsibility to make people better at their jobs.

A company’s ‘competitive edge’ lies in an existing asset – their people, and their ability to make the sale. A professional sales person focused on specific goals, be they personal or business, is generally motivated and able to maximise opportunities presented to them.

3.         Develop and refresh your sales skills

You cannot win a piece of business in the first five minutes – but you can lose it. When meeting customers or prospects it is imperative that you are able to build rapport that creates a profitable customer relationship. To achieve this you need to understand your customer’s needs, plan a successful outcome for each customer meeting, identify more sales opportunities, professionally manage each sales cycle and close profitable sales.

Selling is the development of customer relationships to produce ongoing business which is mutually beneficial to both parties.

Companies can increase their profits by up to 20% by showing their staff, particularly sales people, how to exploit psychology in the sales process.  The added benefit is a confident sales force with an increased range of skills and self esteem.

This learning process doesn’t have to be complicated if just three key psychological areas are targeted during a sales negotiation:

·                     Communicating the right message

·                     Self perception

·                     Understanding the customer

Communicating the right message is not always as simple as it seems as ‘people don’t always hear what we think we have said’. Therefore, a negative response is often the outcome. On closer inspection, the customer often receives no message, the wrong message or a mixed message.

If sales people develop sufficient psychological acumen, they will understand how people receive messages and so be able to deliver the right messages resulting in more ‘yes’ responses.

Self perception is an on-going process. Successful sales people are profit motivated and will therefore strive to meet financial targets. However, those at the top of their game have come to realise that money is not the only source of motivation.  The big question is what does inspire them?

There are several answers to this, but one of the key issues is about goal setting. Here’s a rather startling statistic to consider: 95% of people don’t set themselves goals, and those people usually work for the 5% that do!

4.                   Identify new business opportunities in key accounts

Winning new clients and keeping existing ones are two focal issues for most companies.  These are key to business growth and development. Companies won’t survive without new customers, but equally, it is pointless winning new business if present clients keep slipping away.

This may be common sense, but it is staggering to discover how many organisations fail to follow through on one of the main principles in winning new customers and keeping existing ones – offering excellent customer service.

Your company’s sales people must be 100% confident that what they sell to the customer will be delivered. It is important to understand that when organisations actively look for new suppliers, one of the main considerations will be the quality of customer service. However, the challenge is to deliver quality as it is seen by the customer, not what you believe quality to be.

Companies often recognise the significance of customer service from a strategic standpoint.  Media marketing messages are always claiming to put the customer first, but all too often the promise is not fulfilled.

Consider your own company and how much contact there is between your staff and existing and potential customers through the internet, email, telephone, fax, letter and, of course, meetings.  Through each of these mediums there is an opportunity waiting to be seized and a relationship to be built and strengthened.

Imagine the impact if one in ten customers bought an additional product from your company, or referred your business to a colleague because they were so pleased with the experience of dealing with your people. There is nothing more powerful than one of your customers recommending you to a friend or colleague and this can become a reality through excellent customer service.

5.         Identify, qualify and win appointments with new prospects

For the majority of new-business sales people the first stage in the process of winning new accounts is winning appointments. This is often very demanding and unfortunately there is no magic formula. Saying this, there are of course things you can do to ease the challenge.

Whether you are going to contact the new prospect by cold calling, telephone or letter, creating an appointment making process is a must for developing new business. This is a key aspect of the role and if it is not set up professionally will impact severely on your performance. You cannot close new accounts if you don’t have prospects to see.

To help you win appointments you must first identify the environment you are comfortable working in – some people prefer silence and solitude; others are happier with background noise and activity.

Time should be dedicated to appointment making. Working in short bursts on a daily basis will help you to maintain your level of enthusiasm. The key is to plan appointment making times and then treat these as if they were meetings.

Ensure that you always plan ahead. A sales person calling on Friday and seeking an appointment ‘next week’ sends a message of desperation. An appointment made 14 -21 days ahead communicates that you are a busy, in-demand professional.

A comprehensive survey conducted by the Institute of Purchasing Management which covered all kinds of people who buy things, established beyond any doubt that ‘only one in five customers will ever volunteer an appointment’. The other four out of five expect, on principle, to be asked!

So, when closing for an appointment always assume that the customer wants to see you, on getting a positive response make the appointment immediately and don’t forget to thank the customer for their time.

Brett Lyons