Few suggestions inflame passions faster than the suggestion that performance pay be abolished. It’s our contention, nonetheless, that, in an ideal environment, commissions and bonuses are likely to be in conflict with the goal of the organisation. Of course, traditional sales processes are not ’ideal environments’ and, as such, the traditional sales process serves as… “Performance pay: the case against”
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me what percentage of their sales they should be spending on advertising, I’d be writing this column from Aspen! Problem is, it’s simply the wrong question to ask. And I’ll show you why… Let’s assume that the objective of your advertising is to generate sales.… “Business marketing by numbers: How to dial up next year’s sales figures”
If you have a salesperson, I challenge you to try this simple ‘time and motion’ study. Follow her around for a week and take note of the different activities in which she engages – and the percentage of her working hours that are devoted to each. My guess is that you’ll discover something like the… “Is your salesperson really selling?”
If you’ve attended any of our recent breakfasts, you’ll know that I am a big fan of e-mail perodicals – or ’eBulletins’, as I call them. Now, whenever I mention eBulletins, someone asks, ’But Justin, isn’t broadcast e-mail spam?’ My answer: ’Well it is, and it isn’t!’ You see, it all depends on your definition… “Is all unrequested e-mail necessarily spam?”
Human brains are well suited for some tasks, and poorly suited to others. Our grey matter excels at creative pursuits, but it’s easily stumped when it comes to even the most rudimentary logic. We are reminded of this regularly when we talk to subscribers about their management of promotional expenditure. Almost without exception, we find… “How to manage your promotional expenditure with absolute precision”
Imagine what you would say if your production manager attempted to justify the purchase of a new piece of capital equipment by arguing that the lease payments will bring you in line with industry benchmarks for capital expenditure! I’m guessing that you wouldn’t appreciate the employment of such irrational thinking to the purchase of machinery.… “What’s a customer really worth?”
In a process built along the lines we advocate it is critical that salespeople pursue a ‘sale’ at each business-development appointment. Now this sale may not be the achievement of the ultimate objective. In many cases it’s just permission to move to the next step in the (standardised) opportunity-management process. It may be that salespeople… “Salespeople must sell!”
I’ve discussed in the past that an assumption that underpins the design and management of most sales processes is that conversion (rate) is the primary driver of sales. The Sales Process Engineering method recognises this assumption as erroneous. In most all sales processes, opportunity flow (volume) is the primary driver, not conversion. It’s quite easy… “When higher conversion equals lower sales”
Here’s a question If we were to classify the potential causes of low sales into three categories: Market and offer mismatch (wrong market, wrong offer or both) Lack of appropriate channels for customer to hear about us (promotional channels) or to buy our products (sales channels) Sales management (managing the sales pipeline) Which do you… “Major cause of low sales”
I just had a call from a client who owns a make-to-order manufacturing firm (building materials) in New Zealand. Chris was agitated because he had just realised that, last week, across his sales team, 20 appointment slots had gone unfilled, due either to cancellations or a failure to schedule appointments. He had calculated that these… “Chris gets it!”
