INNERGISE!

Each month Innergy research an area of business that is pertinent to our customer database, carrying out a brief survey and providing some practical ideas that can be immediately implemented to help individuals, teams and organisations overcome some of the key challenges they face and exploit any opportunities available to them.

In January’s review we asked those polled what they hoped the New Year would bring for them to enable their businesses to push forward in 2012.

As we were expecting, new business and new client acquisition was the overriding winner, with 52% of those polled hoping for more customers to add to their portfolio in 2012.

Whilst we are all too aware that the market is very different to what many organisations have been used to in the past, and for many it is harder than it has ever been to acquire new customers, there is still an incredible amount of opportunity out there waiting to be exploited if you go after it.

Typically, however, it is times like these that many organisations, and in particular many sales people, tend to panic and busy themselves in worthless sales activities and forget some of the core fundamentals.

You can easily split this into three categories – People, Process and Position.

People

Having spent a number of years working with and developing high performing sales people, we have found that there are some very common traits amongst them that differentiate them from the less successful sales people we have met, as follows in order of most significant to least significant:

Looking at these common traits, many of which are attitudinal (how we approach selling) skills more so than aptitudinal (what we are able to do), and comparing yourself and your sales people against this list, you might immediately see some areas of weakness.

Think about where the gaps lie across the sales floor in your business and create a quick and effective training plan to turn these around.

Think about the top performers in your business – what are they doing differently to those who aren’t performing? Which of these traits above do they embrace more than any other?

Sales is all about attitude and whilst great sales people must “earn the right” to be selling through developing their product, customer and market knowledge, it is how they approach the sales function in the first place that will determine their success.

Ask yourself the question, how much of your existing sales training and support is focused on the “how to” over the “want to”?

Process

We talked about things getting complicated earlier. This does not just refer to some of the overtly convoluted sales jargon we tend to use when we are pitching (in a vain attempt to sound more professional and knowledgeable about our subject matter). It also refers to the actual sales process we follow, from start to finish.

Sales is not complicated and yet if you stop for one moment and think about the things we do to try and win new business you may soon realise that some / many of the activities we do when selling are either unnecessary or ineffective, or both.

When we work with organisations to help them develop new sales strategies and routes to market, we leave them with a clear and simple process to follow. It often takes half the time to implement as their original sales process and each step is measured and supported by an appropriate tool, system or piece of collateral (marketing and sales collateral).

The role of any organisation is to remove any excuse for a sales person not to sell, and provide them with all the tools necessary to sell. Look at your sales processes currently and measure which of your sales activities are bringing you the most return on your investment in time and resources.

Position

In market places that are saturated with competition, as many markets tend to be today, organisations need to stand out from the crowd in order to capture market share and win new business.

One of the first things I tend to ask sales people when I first start working with them is to tell me their lift spiel (sometimes referred to as an elevator pitch) and walk me through their Capability Statements.

After the initial “oh, that is old school sales – everyone knows that” type comments, it soon becomes very clear that many sales people either make something up on the spot that is far from inspiring or use a lift spiel that I could guarantee would be semi-identical to the majority of their competition.

If organisations and their sales people are therefore positioning themselves in the same way as their competition, then the only point of difference is always going to be price (i.e. customers will be thinking to themselves “if you are all saying the same thing, and therefore presumably doing the same thing, then I might as well go for the cheapest of the two”).

If you are a sales person, stop right now and write down what you would say if I was a new client that you were talking to the very first time and I asked you to sell to me (but I only have a 2 minutes so be quick and get to the point!).

If you are a manager of sales people, ask each of your sales people to do the same thing right now and email you back their responses – you might just be both amazed and concerned about what comes back!

Remember, a good Capability Statement includes a positively intriguing lift pitch, validated USPs, tangible Proof Points and some Benefit statements, all supported by some Case Studies and Testimonials.

Contact james@innergy.co.uk if you would like some more information on how to create effective Capability Statements for your business.

We will be focusing on the other three areas highlighted in the poll (Increased Employee Motivation, Better Business Processes and Improved Communication) in our next post shortly.