Everyone’s looking for more opportunities… But not everyone knows how to unlock them!
It can be tough; a shift in the market; a new sales team; or maybe you are simply stuck in the old ways of doing things and not really knowing where to start.
My advice; go back to the basics; have a good look at your offering, think about your customers and how best to access and engage with them. In many industries, the market has shifted. Gone are the days of one-off sales. Today you should be looking for long-term, or lifetime, customers – think of solutions like the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. These types of sales are smaller up front, but sticky, and are high value over time.
This model is not exclusive to Software and can be applied in many industries, whether it be Retail, Information Technology, or Recruiting.
Going back to the basics means, you need to think about:
- How big your market is; what share you want; which customers best provide this share
- How you put yourself in front of your customers, and potential customers, on a regular basis, in the most effective, yet cost efficient manner
- How you make it easy, and compelling for them to engage you
- Create an effective capture and follow up processes to ensure every contact point (lead) is followed up and qualified
- Measure the effectiveness of your salespeople; i.e. pipeline requirements, conversions rates, coverage factors, and forecasting
These questions fall into a logical series of categories for Marketing and Sales, or really more specifically – I’d call it your “Customer Acquisition Strategy”, and they are;
- Market Analysis
- Marketing Strategies
- Marketing Campaigns
- Marketing Analytics
- Sales Optimisation
- Sales Skills
- Sales Metrics
In some cases, depending on what you are selling; you can do this analysis and planning for a particular market; and in other cases, you may need to do this planning product by product or offering by offerings. Either way, it’s important to plan out thoroughly, know what you are looking to achieve both at a macro (Marketing) and micro (Sales) level and then measure, measure, measure.
