As many businesses and sales leaders look to finalise their business strategies, sales and training budgets for FY 2023-24, they are likely putting their minds on how to help their sales and client-facing teams improve productivity and performance, customer service standards, sales pipeline, attraction and retention of the right kinds of clients, their competitiveness, profitability, revenue, and so on.
Often their minds will drift to some form of sales training to improve sales. And sure, the right kind of sales training is essential to stay sales fit and deliver sales results; however, many businesses and sales leaders miss the opportunity to fully assess the health of their sales system to determine what really needs addressing. Sales training is not the only area that we need to consider when it comes to selling better.
Why?
Sometimes, other departments are putting your sales effort at risk. For example, here are some real-life issues uncovered when we undertook sales system audits in clients’ businesses:
- Credit department’s parameters were unnecessarily too tight, so good deals weren’t getting approved
- Marketing wasn’t aligned with the right sales segments so there was poor or no client conversion
- Salespeople were being drawn into distribution and becoming glorified delivery people
- Operations didn’t want to take on more work so refused any new sales from the sales team
- HR knocked back perfectly good salespeople because they were ‘too sales focused’
I could go on, but you get the gist. Also, if any part of your sales system is out of whack – think no clear sales strategy, no or poorly defined selling-buying-service processes, no compelling value proposition, no sales leadership standards, no KPIs, poor customer culture, lack of support from the broader business, etc. – no amount of sales training will fix the issues of sales performance.
This is why we developed our world-class Barrett Sales System Review that enables any business to audit and benchmark their sales system and operations and then develop and implement focused sales strategies, build robust sales processes, and develop sales teams and cultures that can sell better faster now and sustainably into the future.
Barrett’s Sales System, Strategy & Operations questionnaire, report, and accompanying planning workshop are designed to help businesses and sales leaders assess, realign, and develop a robust sales strategy, sales operations framework, and sales team structure and culture that is underpinned by human-centred ethos.
The sales system audit will assess a range of areas including:
- All elements of sales strategy and its current effectiveness, gaps, and limitations
- Alignment or not of sales processes and sales team structure to the strategy
- Relevant market and customer segments, and value proposition effectiveness
- The current configuration of the sales operation and its effect on sales results
- The current level of sales integration across the business value chain and how each business area impacts sales performance and customer satisfaction
Achieve unified, ordered & disciplined sales execution:
Barrett’s Sales System allows everyone, especially leadership and sales teams, to speak the same language with unified sales messaging and a unique value proposition, understanding what strategies and tactics need to be applied in the marketplace.
Taking this approach will provide the essential sales knowledge and human-centred framework needed to lead and manage sales teams and operations effectively and execute focused go-to-market strategies.
Adopting a sales system approach leads to successful, human-centred, collaborative sales teams and business cultures that attract and retain more of the clients and employees you want and where selling is proudly everybody’s business.
Don’t take our word for it. Here are some testimonials and case studies from businesses that have led their teams to sales success using a sales system’s approach.
The change has been outstanding. Two years ago (Nov 2017) I couldn’t have imagined that Sales would be in such great shape already. I thought it would’ve taken years but here we are now with a fantastic sales team, sales infrastructure and processes, strategy and culture that is growing and making a huge difference to our business and our clients. As an accountant, I knew very little about sales, but Barrett’s Sales Strategy & Operations Framework and the Barrett team have steered us in the right direction. Executive General Manager publicly listed $4B Retail & Wholesale Healthcare business.
The Rural Muster project has taken the lead in facilitating a complete culture and mindset shift across the entire organisation to improve the customer experience and lift sales. In addition, I lead a competent sales leadership team who are coaching and leading from the front, and we have an outstanding sales score card. Barrett has provided us with robust sales systems, tools, resources and ongoing education to give us the ability to innovate, navigate and grow our business for the short, medium and long term. Head of Sales, Agri-Business Banking.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
If you want to know more about the power of sales systems and you’d like to discuss how to go about conducting a sales system audit we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us here conctact us or (+61) 03 9533 0000.
Stories from the field:
Thank you! I know I have already said this but I will say it again. It was a fantastic day. We walked away with some practical tools and ways of elevating our way of doing business, growing our sales and selling better! You were engaging, insightful and aligned the content and delivery to suit our team. Looking forward to our follow up sessions.
I had a client meeting on Wednesday and applied the WWW and gained plenty of F’s!
Related topics
How a Sales System Reduces Execution Risk
Why Your Company Needs a Sales Strategy & Operations Audit NOW
5 Minutes to Assess Your Sales Operations
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