21st century selling
Please, Please Please. Stop selling likes it’s 1999! There are far too many salespeople who still think that the things that were successful in the 1990s still apply to effectively selling to customers today in 2020.
Breaking news the 20th century is over. If we want to keep helping our customers solve their problems, we need to start thinking like 21st century professionals.
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The Challenges of Sales Enablement
There are a lot of companies talking about sales enablement, but what is it? To many sales enablement is just a way to get more accountability from the marketing team. To others it’s investments in training programs. Then there are those who think better technology is what sales enablement is.
The truth is these are all elements of a successful sales enablement strategy. Before you can develop a strategy that is right for your business you first have understand where you are today.
The real way to make Customer Success work.
As more companies move to a SaaS model you must make it easy to set up, and use. In many cases this initial set up should require little to no cost to the customer.
Why this is important to you? If your customers purchase your solution and cannot get it work the way they want they will not stay your customer. Customer churn with SaaS companies is a significant challenge. The reasons vary, but one of the top reasons is they never figured out how to use the solution.
Making customer success work means you must be 100% all about the customer.
Efficiency is the key to Profitability
Buy it today, and get it tomorrow. That seems to be the mantra of many businesses in 2019. I call it the Amazon effect. How can you compete in a world where everyone wants the solution to their problems tomorrow? Be more efficient.
In order to build, and operate an efficient business you must have well defined, and fully developed processes, and systems. In addition, your employees must be fully trained on how to effectively implement, and execute on those processes, and use those systems. Most business owners however don’t understand that they really don’t have any processes, or systems in place. What they have are a set of ideas that their employees loosely follow.
Because your employees are following these ideas every day the illusion of real processes, and systems takes root. You may have found that in the beginning you were generating revenue consistently, and delivering to your customers’ expectations. Then things started to change. Sales slowed down, and you started losing customers. At first you blamed the economy. Then you blamed the competition. Most business owners never look in the mirror, and think maybe the problem is me.
In order to incorporate efficiency in your business you have to take a good hard look at where you are today, and why you are in this place. Did you have something in place that was working well, but for some reason you decided to change what you were doing? Maybe you were just lucky, and now you realize that you never implemented any true processes, and systems.
If you are not sure if you really have processes, and systems in place the best thing to do is ask for impartial help. It can be hard to see what needs to be updated, or adjusted when you are so close to things. As a business owner you may feel that you don’t need any help. You may feel you have everything under control. You may feel that you can find a way to resolve your current challenges on your own.
What if doing it on your own does not work? Or worse what if doing it on your own causes you to lose precious time doing the things you do best? What if you miss out on extremely profitable opportunities because you didn’t seek the right kind of help? What if the help you needed was a simple phone call away?
Increasing sales is the key to profitability. The key to increasing sales is efficiency. The key to efficiency is fully developed, and documented processes, and systems. You want to be sure that you have the right tools to consistently win new business, keep your current customers happy, and grow your company. The only way to be sure you have what you need is to get an honest assessment of your current situation.
When you are ready to increase your productivity, efficiency and profitability you should schedule a no obligation initial business assessment.
Taking the short business owner survey right now is a great place to start.
Delusional Forecasting
As we begin the new year how does your opportunity pipeline look? Too many business owners build their annual forecasts based on myth. They set goals that are unrealistic and often bae them on fiction. The fiction they use is the bad data in their CRM. Some times they are not even using a CRM. They just have a list of suspects that they believe are prospects.
How do you know if your forecast is real? You have to first understand your data. The problem however is too many leaders do things to sabotage themselves. The require the entry of false data into the CRM, so they end up with false reports. Then they act surprised when things do work out as planned.
There are ways to understand if your data is real. Unfortunately, too many leaders are not willing to do the things necessary to really gain true understanding. They would prefer to believe in the hype. They hope for the best. All successful business people know, hope is not a strategy.
So how can you know for sure if your forecast for this year is accurate? You could work with someone who has a decade of experience developing 100% accurate revenue forecasts up to 2 years out.
But you would have to be willing to take a deep hard look at your business. If you want to be like the ostrich and just stick your head in the sand, go ahead. But while you are ignoring the danger signs your competitors will be busy taking your customers, and winning the competitive bids that you thought you had in the bag.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing a factual pipeline review.
So, what are waiting for?
Its January 3rd now is the time to schedule an opportunity assessment and start the year armed with the knowledge of exactly where you will end 2019.
Or you could just keep guessing, and see how that works out for you. Do you think that’s what your competitors are doing?
Contact us and find out what your real 2019 forecast is today.