How do you Boost Flagging Sales? (Part 2)
Posted by John Sproson on Oct 4, 2011 in Sales & Marketing | 0 comments
So having collected your data as carefully and objectively as possible, and having established the validity of the measures you have used, it is important to clearly show that you are comparing like with like. This might prove difficult depending on your particular business circumstances, but it is well worth going the extra mile at this stage of the process if you are to ensure you obtain the most effective outcome. Armed with all this it is now time to consider what’s to be done…
I’d suggest you go for the ‘low hanging fruit’ first. By that I mean have a good look at what is working and do more of it;
- Who are your best sales performers and what can everyone learn from them? Organise a ‘best practice’ meeting.
- Which products or service elements are your most profitable and who are your major customers – maybe they can be encouraged to buy more!
- What needs to happen for you to be able to generally sell more to existing customers?
- What elements of your commission structure work best for you – change the ones that don’t!
Once you’ve done this, you can move on to the more short and medium term actions, for example;
- If you undertake your own distribution, to what extent do your drivers ‘sell’ for you? Perhaps they could use some training.
- How innovative are you? Are you relying too much on out of date products, taste or fashion? If so, address it.
- Does everyone at the customer interface within the business (they needn’t necessarily be in a selling role) appreciate and agree precisely what’s expected of them and by when? (Many companies still fail to identify the expectations they have of their staff and the time it might take to satisfy them)
As you can see, one thing I’ve omitted to suggest is to increase the number of sales people or blame the poor performers and dismiss them. Before you even start to think about this, you need to identify the value of your current resources and work to use them more effectively.
If you have found this of interest, but would like expand upon it or discuss & review your own situation in more detail, please do feel free to
contact us…
