Sales Trend 4 – Doing Meaningful Business

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Environment & Sustainability, Sales Trends, Strategy, Sustainability & Environment

The Sales Trend # 4 of the 12 Sales Trends for 2015 is ‘Doing Meaningful Business’. Here’s a summary of the trend.

Over the years companies have become very focused on only creating value for their shareholders (and by value we mean dividends). This extreme focus has meant that making a profit, too often took priority over the well-being of employees, communities, and the environment; however, this model has proven to be unsustainable and in some cases brought about a backlash of undesired …

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How to link your Business Strategy to Sales Strategy

By / / Sales Strategy, Strategy, Uncategorized

For too long now sales has lived in the shadow of corporate and marketing strategies, but these tend to provide limited direction. They are usually too broad and generalised or too narrow, only focused on financial results. That makes them of little tangible value in the pragmatic world doing business. That being said Selling is often seen by management as the unit that gets the business in; a tactical function in the value chain at best.

However, selling is much more complex than just getting in business. Selling is where the ‘rubber hits the road’; where the concept of micro-marketing and …

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Brand your Salespeople

By / / Brand & Reputation, Marketing, Strategy, Uncategorized

Have you ever asked your salespeople what your company’s brand means? Chances are you will get different answers from different people – and chances are none of their answers will be entirely correct either. In spite of the investment many companies make on developing and promoting their brands to their customers, little is done to build the brand integrity internally. As a result there is often a disconnect between what a company promises to its customers and what the salespeople are saying.

Branding (amongst many things) is designed to stimulate an emotional expectation. Armed with the feelings, stimulated …

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What’s influencing your customers’ buying decisions?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Communication, Customer Service, Education in Sales, Neuroscience, Sales Psychology, Sales Results, Sales Strategy, Strategy

Product demand and brand scores are down and the reasons are tough to manage. There are a multitude of factors influencing buyers, some are within our control and many are not. Factors such as bad experiences with retailers and intermediaries, mediocre service levels, the increasing number of competitors with similar products and brands, cheaper pricing are just some of the causes. The tricky global situation is also creating a more conservative spending climate where saving is now the prevailing consumer mindset. With all of this how do we influence our customers so that they want to buy from us? How …

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Learning how to ride the Boom AND Bust economy

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Business Acumen, Marketing, Resilience, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Results, Strategy

These turbulent, challenging and sometimes volatile times we find ourselves living in are making many of us rethink how we do business, how we live our lives and how we engage with the world. Unless you are hiding under the doona, the rest of us are witnessing and experiencing a major transition from the Industrial Revolution to a brave new world of the New Tech paradigm.

This transition is exciting and frightening at the same time because the ‘new order’ is not ordered at all. It keeps changing at a rapid rate leaving a constant sense of unease. Many of the …

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Age Old Lawn Bowls Turns New With Social Media

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Culture, Social Media, Strategy, Success

Lawn Bowls clubs are innovating to attract new members, even running bare-foot bowls and speed dating bowls for new and existing members. If the sport of Lawn Bowls can embrace the internet and social media to reinvigorate its brand, increase participation, grow its members and lift revenues, then so can we all.

Lawn Bowls has been around for hundreds of years with its origins supposedly dating back to Ancient Egyptian times along with its cousins, Bocce and Pétanque. It’s often been seen as a traditional sport for older people with rigid rules and recognisable but rather unattractive white uniforms. I can …

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Why we need to sell results not solutions

By / / Sales Skills, Strategy

‘Results not Solutions’ was voted as the Number 5 Sales Trends for 2011. If you’re business is about selling packaged or aggregated solutions you may be in for a rude shock – the world of selling has changed yet again. The world has moved on from selling solutions to delivering results. Selling solutions is a very “1990’s” approach, however even today much of the sales training you will see still hovers around selling solutions. The truth is people find solutions pretty quickly but delivering real results, well, that takes skill. …

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How satisfied are you with your sales incentive plan?

By / / Coaching, Sales Tips, Strategy, Success

A good sales incentive plan rests on a fundamental set of design principles that reward the right behaviours, optimise sales effectiveness, and maximise the return on incentive dollars.

Specifically, a good sales incentive plan design:
• uses performance metrics that are aligned with the company’s overall strategy;
• supports and is consistent with the overall sales force strategy — its job roles, available skills, selling processes, internal culture, etc.;
• is mechanically sound in its design elements; and
• can be administered efficiently

If not well designed however, there may be issues or challenges within each principle which could limit effectiveness, waste …

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Transitioning from the old sales paradigm to the new world of social sales

By / / Communication, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Self Development, Social Media, Social Sales, Strategy

When I began my career as a professional sales person in the early 1980’s we were trained in product and client communication skills focusing on handling objections. We were given business cards, product brochures, a geographic territory of clients to manage and grow, and a car to get around in. We did not have mobile phones, let alone smart phones / tablets, laptops, or CRM’s. There was very little coaching and we were expected to make sales and make it work.

For a while there, let’s say 20+ years, it seemed like business as usual as many companies …

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Are your sales people at risk of leaving?

By / / Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Planning, Strategy

How many of your sales people are thinking about a career move right now?

How many of them have come back from their holiday break wondering if they are in the right role or company?

Sales people are one of the highest “at risk” groups in terms of turnover (average of 26% compared to the national average of 14%). Some industries have sales staff turnover up into the 70-80% range i.e. high churn call centres.

Some of the reasons sales people give in their notice is because:

  • they have not had the success they had hoped to achieve and have not attained their financial …

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