 | |
| |
Sales Management Information
| |
|
|
|
How to Maximize Account Penetration and Jump-Start Sales
Maximizing account penetration is one of the most critical functions in sales. Why? The depth of account penetration has an enormous impact on revenues and profitability. Think about it - if every one of your company's salespeople sold every product and service in their portfolio to every business unit, department, and division of every account, what kind of number would they produce? Something huge, right? From a sales management perspective, few things are more frustrating than having a bunch of "one trick ponies" on a sales team. These are salespeople that have developed a comfort level with one product or service, and that product or service makes up 80% to 100% of their sales. I used to work for a computer distributor that had numerous salespeople that fit this mold. They would congratulate themselves for selling servers to an account, completely oblivious to the fact that the very same account was also buying storage, networking equipment, software, and professional services. The distributor's salespeople only scratched the surface of the total available opportunity in most accounts. Here is a second huge frustration for sales managers and executives -- salespeople that don't produce "traction" with new products and services. When your company introduces a new product or service, you make a pretty sizeable investment to train your salespeople to sell the new product or service, right? Doesn't it drive you crazy when only a fraction of your salespeople actually sell the new product or service? The return on your sales training investment stinks, and your company never sees the revenue boost it expected to receive from the new product or service. Why do I bring up lack of account penetration and lack of sales traction for new products and services in the same article? Because the same problem is often at the root of both issues! That problem is an excessive focus on technical details. Many managers and salespeople believe that salespeople need to become experts in order to sell a product or service effectively. To develop this understanding, companies invest enormous amounts of time and money in exhaustive training to educate salespeople on product features and benefits, performance characteristics, industry information, pricing guidelines, promotional activities, available collateral material, etc. Unfortunately, when salespeople leave these training sessions, they often have no idea how to find or qualify opportunities for the product or service they were just "trained" to sell! This leaves the salespeople frustrated, as they feel the time spent in training was wasted. Management is equally frustrated with their sales team's inability to gain traction with new products and services, and their inability to learn to sell their company's entire portfolio of products and services. This mutual frustration results from a lack of recognition of one very important fact: When a salesperson identifies a qualified opportunity, there is usually no shortage of knowledgeable resources that can assist the salesperson with converting the opportunity into a sale. These resources may include technical or other specialists from the salesperson's own company, or similar resources that are employed by suppliers or channel partners. If salespeople have access to product/service experts, why should they spend time learning technical details? Instead, why don't they laser-focus their learning on how to find and qualify opportunities? Your company can facilitate this kind of focused learning by redesigning product and service training curriculums to address the following topics:
Copyright 2005 -- Alan Rigg Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don't Perform and What to Do About It. To learn more about his book and sign up for more FREE sales and sales management tips, visit http://www.8020performance.com.
MORE RESOURCES:
GreenRoad Hires Industry Veteran Thomas R. Ness to Join Executive Team - PR Newswire (press release)
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Small Business Marketing: Overtaking Your Competitors Few businesses keep tabs on competitors, yet such knowledge can give you a distinctive competitive edge. Building a file on them, looking at everything from the customer's viewpoint and asking suppliers and employees what they know about them can be worthwhile. Want to Increase the Amount of Business that Your Firm is Getting? Business development is important for every business and refers to the action of bringing in customers or clients that are likely to make positive contributions to a company's bottom line. Business Development is all about establishing relevant and subsisting relationships in the market place. 14 Top Lead Generation Tactics According to former Harvard Business School professor David Maister, typical marketing practices are not only inapplicable for professional service firms, but they may be dangerously wrong.Often professional service firm principals tell me they are frustrated with the quality of their marketing materials, they are concerned with their firm's low profile or they feel pressure because their efforts are not generating enough new client leads. Poor Performance - Fix it by Coaching Coaching is about finding out the cause of poor performanceor behaviour and discussing with the team member how to putit right.The team member might respond immediately to coaching andimprove the situation. Finding A Sales Force That Pays For Itself The elements involved in building a sales force, especially one that pays for itself and also adds value to any business, are many and varied. The whole purpose and direction of a sales manager needs to be directed to creating a sales force that causes the employing company to expand through increasing sales. Moving a Business Relationship from Free to Fee: Turning Strangers to Friends with Power of Freebies In the last issue I shared with you a technique for getting permission to follow up with people who have seen you speak on stage. This was just one example of a tactic for filling your pipeline. The ACCOUNTABILITY Challenge for Today's Business Management In today's 24/7 driven business word, accountability is becoming a more critical issue for every business owner, manager, executive and salesperson. The challenge is to realize that accountability is just not a single issue, but an issue with many supporting elements. Online Sales: Secret To Increase Your Sales By Bundling Your Products Microsoft has used this online sales secret to become a giant, and the greatest software company in the world.How about you?What are you waiting for?The secret is bundling your products. Determining Sales Fit; the Key Growth Process for Your Business Help your organization grow by assessing the right indicators in individuals slated for revenue-generating positions within your company. "Growth Talent", such as sales, account executive, consultant, sales engineer, or other individuals responsible for top-line revenue growth. Sacking Clients: Brand Power Wheel Remember in the last message we talked about your directional pipeline and how sometimes you'll be approached by prospects who just don't fit with what you want to achieve? We looked at the different types of prospect - Desperate, Curious, and Inspired.Well, now we're going to have a think about what might happen if you realise you have some of the desperate or curious people as your clients. Is Your Sales Trust Factor High Enough to Win Against the Competition? How high is your sales trust factor?Is it higher than the sales trust factor of your competition?It should be, if you want to increase your success in sales.Your trust factor represents the level of trust that buyers have in you as a seller. Not Enough Fresh Sales Leads? Marketing is the New Sales Your sales are down and leads are rare. The phone's not ringing. Offer Package Deals To Increase Profits And Sales An effective way to increase your profits and sales is to bundle many products or services together into one package. This gives people more reasons to buy your products and services. Speed-up Your Sales Cycle This week's article is my response to a question by David Cohen of Bridge-Soft. "Quite a few prospects have told me that business is stagnant at the moment, but they are hopeful towards the 4th quarter. How to Win Over the Man in the Chair Salesmanship, Repetition, and Direct Mail In a classic business-to-business print ad from the late 50's for McGraw-Hill Magazines an imposing looking executive sits in his chair. He has both feet planted firmly on the ground, a scowl on his face. It's Time For A Sales Management Revolution Are you dog tired because of the way you manage your sales team? Many managers tell me that they cannot see a way out of traditional sales management methods that keep them working like dogs, including focusing strictly on revenue goals, staying late, traveling up to three weeks a month, tightly controlling teams, and constantly reacting to emergencies. There has to be a better way. 100% Commission Equals Zero Percent Control The temptation to use straight (100%) commission plans never goes away: "Let's put our salespeople on 100 percent commission. Then, if they don't perform, we're not out any money. Sex, Drugs, & Rock-n-Roll: Trade Show Traps and Tips Sex, Drugs & Rock-n-RollHere's the Scenario.. Five Steps to Maximize Success in Targeting For Growth Targeting is the process of selecting high potential customer accounts to receive intense sales focus. Goal setting translates that high potential into achievable numeric objectives, i. Project/Program Management Best Practices for Success in ANY Industry! Where is our success? Although there have been improvements, over 60% of projects/programs failed and many were canceled in 2003 (ref:The Standish Report CHAOS)! Our goal for 2004 and beyond is to contribute to a 60% and better, project/program success rate! STOP THE MADNESS-MANAGE AND CONTROL PROJECTSWITH THE FOLLOWING:Best Practice Processes for Project/Program Success(Outline):Program/Project Management (and Business Management) (Integration)Use of Experience and Knowledge (Integration)Planning and Scheduling/WBS (Scope/Time/Cost)Communication Planning (Communication)Status & Earned Value Reporting (Communication)Performance (metrics) Reporting (Communication)Risks Identification and Management (Risks)Project Repository/DB (Communication/Lessons Learned/Knowledge Transfer)Change Management (Integration)Subcontractor/Vendor Control (Procurement)Team Building (Human Resource)Development Process (Integration/Solution/Scope)Selection of the appropriate model/technique (e.g.
|
| home | site map | Group Privacy Policy |
| © Sales Management 2009 |