Bailey How to Build an Effective Sales Strategy

If You Don't Know Where You're Going ... Any Bus Will Get You There!
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-99131-185-0
Verlag: novum pro Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 190 Seiten

How to Build an Effective Sales Strategy is all about the simple mechanics of driving a business forward. You need to know what you are driving, how it works, how to keep it on the road, and what fuels it. You need to know the purpose of a business, the art of sales generation, maximisation of profits and how to avoid the potholes. Many entrepreneurs struggle to get their business to the next level. Many experienced leaders have become stuck in a rut. For both scenarios it is difficult to see a way forward. For great advice on how to get the best out of employees and teams, let the author help you to manage your business better, guide you with motivating and directing staff or simply help you to increase sales and have an effective plan for future growth.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bailey, David

Leseproben

Chapter One – Creating the Dream Market Information and Policy Decisions The crucial starting point for an organisation to be successful is that the owners or directors must have a clear idea of what they want to be. After all, they are the driver of the bus! At this stage it may not be a distinctly defined or precisely articulated spreadsheet with numbers and facts, but it should be a vivid and colourful picture of what you could see the company being … in your head! Give yourself time, several weeks, if necessary, to keep testing your thoughts and visions and build up the mental picture of what it is that you would like the company or venture to be. Write it down, read it out loud, record it, play it back and listen to the words. Does it make sense? Will others understand the idea? Does it conjure up a picture in other peoples’ minds or is it too technical and complicated that you would have to be an expert to understand the dream let alone the business? You often hear entrepreneurs say things like, ‘dare to dream’ but it is absolutely true, the more you can dream about what it could be and what it might look like and how it might work, the more the human brain engages in creative activities to make it happen. In human psychology it is a proven fact that if you think you can … you are probably right and if you think you can’t … you are probably right. The mind is more powerful than the body and will create explosive energy to push you through the challenges ahead provided you have a clear enough picture of where you want to be. If you get hung up on trying to define the detail on how you are going to succeed at this stage in proceedings, you probably do not have a clear enough picture in your head of what you want to be as a company. The HOW will follow the WHAT, once you have decided what ‘the what’ should be! One piece of good advice in THE DRAGON’S DEN that James Caan once gave us was, ‘don’t confuse a hobby or passion for a viable business proposition’… it usually isn’t! Another checking mechanism was, ‘don’t test your idea out with friends or family’… they are not going to tell you the honest reality of whether it’s a good plan or not! That’s where a complete and trusted stranger (like an independent consultant) can be of enormous benefit. They will tell you the truth as they see it, warts ‘n’ all. Any business idea or future dream is ‘your baby’, so family and friends are unlikely to want to tell you that you have an ugly baby! This book applies to two business scenarios but is not exclusively geared to those two spheres of operation. The new start up concept/business. The existing company that needs to grow/expand/improve. However, in both scenarios we should follow the same pattern of thinking through what you want it to look like when it’s achieved. Just because you already have a successful existing business does not mean that your new idea or plan will automatically work out for you. Some of the companies we have worked with have developed radically different approaches and business models to those that made them successful in the first place. Apart from a few examples of start-ups and of course the Dragon’s Den portfolio, most businesses that we encounter are already established, wanting to get better or improve, including the launching of new products and concepts as a means to fulfilling their objective. Whatever the scenario, new or existing; it all comes back to the same starting point: Define, then focus on the objective as your end point. Can you describe what this venture would look like? Where do you want to be? These may be described as: Market position: Market share; Brand perception; Customer perception; Competitor differentiation, Profit, Turnover, Fastest growing. There are many different types of objectives and as a business leader you must create the vision that others will understand and buy into, therefore you can’t afford to be vague, confusing or encapsulate so much industry jargon and abbreviations that others will not understand. You may also need to convince investors and shareholders to support your ideas and whilst these characters are highly intelligent individuals, they may not be familiar with your industry jargon. You will certainly need to convince your employees to follow your dream! The Vision Statement Start the ball rolling by trying to formulate a vision statement for your business. There are numerous examples of these kinds of statements and endless arguments over, “is it a mission or a vision statement or is it a list of your values?” To be perfectly honest these are erroneous arguments and the whole point is that a company needs to commit its aims and dreams into writing! Arguing semantics at this juncture is just a waste of valuable time. Your employees (and customers) must be able to visualise your dream and ambition. If they cannot see themselves in it, they are less likely to follow the path, follow you and help you get there! The following is an example of a poor, bland, vague statement that is not likely to stir up any emotions, either good or bad. ANONYMOUS Ltd – 5 Year Vision Statement draft one ‘In four years’, time, we want to be a lot better and bigger than now’ is not necessarily a good definition of where you want to be that others will buy in to and picture themselves in. By contrast, a statement like this: ANONYMOUS Ltd – 5 Year Vision Statement draft two We aim to be a company supporting a loyal customer base through the supply and installation of quality, innovative solutions that will be perceived by our customers as enhancements to their own business operations. We will shift our company perception from being a supplier to the industry into a trusted partner working to help our customers succeed. We will be the ones that the market will automatically ‘turn to’ for help. We will do this by: Aligning ourselves to better quality customers with potential to maximise our expertise. Delivering reliable products and people to help our customers. Proactively selling our services to new customers who fit our required profile. Upskilling our approaches, methods, and processes to be a distinguishable, recognised part of our offer to customers. Utilising our success to fuel our future stability, expansion, and development of our staff. On this journey our employees will be encouraged to contribute to our progress and in return, as a company, we will provide individual training, support and clear leadership so that our employees will grow personally as fast as the company does. Parts of the above (which are customer orientated) can be released to the public, for example on your website, but the whole message should be shared with all employees and be published to all departments. One acid test is to be able to answer the challenge, if you bumped into a stranger showing interest in your organisation, but not knowing your industry, could you paint the future company vision for them in a 20 second verbal burst? If you cannot do this instantly, so that they understand it, then you need to spend more time building the vision and work on articulating it. Complacency kills It is surprising, yet quite often seen, that a business moves along reasonably successfully having its ups and downs but overall doing well … until a major disruption arises, and things begin to get tough. Some of these tough issues cannot be predicted, managed, or prevented by your company but ‘something’ can be predicted with a fair degree of inevitability. Life as with business, has a habit of repeating themselves in cycles and it is those companies who have a clear strategy process and can adjust accordingly with a clear counterstrategy that is more likely to survive the challenges. Sadly, when things are going well, many companies fail to look forward and plan for disruptions or even set themselves up to implement counter measures because they have never followed a strategic process in the first place and simply do not know what to do. Having to think their way out of a crisis is new territory and very scary for most of these companies. These companies can enter panic thinking mode and make rash decisions which may well affect their future position. We have seen in the last 20 years major disruptions affecting our business lives such as: Change of governments Financial markets crash Wars SARS outbreak Covid 19 global virus Intervention of major players into local markets Foreign companies copying products Currency fluctuations ...