• The Business plan
• Marketing and Sales Planning
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Lincolnshire Research Observatory
  • Marketing Plan
    • Analysis for your marketing plan
    • The Four and Seven Ps
    • Developing a Pricing Strategy
    • What else should be in the marketing plan?
  • Forecasting and planning your Sales
    • New Businesses
    • Creating a sales plan
  • Selling and Advertising
    • Advertising
    • Direct Marketing
    • Trade Shows and Exhibitions
  • Selling to the Public Sector
  • Looking after your Customer
    • Use customer care to increase sales
    • How to deal with customer complaints
  • Marketing Articles
    • Does your sales approach close more doors than it opens?
    • How do I determine my marketing budget?
    • Making an exhibition of yourself
    • Marketing in the credit crunch
    • Why might your competitors be doing better than you?
• Financial Planning
• Complying with the law
• Employing for the first time
• Business Rates
• Support Schemes
• Young Traders
• Top Tips

Does your sales approach close more doors than it opens?

James Pinchbeck Marketing Partner, Streets Chartered Accountants

It is undeniable that the last twelve months has seen a decline in sales for many businesses. As a result, the focus has probably been around trying to maintain sales activity as opposed to attaining growth.  This environment has highlighted the good, the bad and the ugly of sales approaches.

Unfortunately, it’s the ‘ugly’ category that seems to most common. Ignescent calls, long-winded emails and even mail shots do not form a part of the effective sales person’s tool kit.  Those depending on the above techniques are often those that are heard creating excuses for poor sales, such as customers ‘just aren’t buying’ or ‘if the product was cheaper’ sales would increase.

Looking ahead, most businesses sales strategy will centre on trying to maintain sales levels or to reach pre-recession figures.  The successes of such activities will be dependent a number of things, including the following:

• Your organisations ability to provide a product or service which truly does have a competitive advantage.  In other words, make sure it both benefits and/or provides a solution to your customers needs.
• Getting people to switch from their existing supplier to you. In order to do this efficiently, you must identify a prospect that should switch to you; if not your ability to sell will be hindered. 
• Your sales staff awareness of the above mentioned benefits and their able to communicate them clearly and efficiently.
• Your ability to identify your target customers and understand their buying behaviour and patterns as well as their decision making processes. Bear in mind that the selling process is about relationship building and may require a multifaceted approach and not just reliance on one technique, such as cold calling or e-shots. Using client relationship management tools, such as Sage ACT! can prove very useful when creating a profile of your prospects and help you move through the sales process in a coherent way.
• Your sales and marketing activity must be synchronised.  Use your ground level sales people to gain feedback from both existing clients and prospects to help develop your marketing campaigns.  Promotional campaigns can then be created and used to enhance your sales or business development activity.
• Be in it for the long haul.  It is widely accepted in the marketing profession that it takes at least seven points of contact before a sales opportunity starts to come to fruition –still it is amazing how many poor performers opt for a one hit wonder.  A typical example is giving up almost immediately and moving on the next potential customer from an ever decreasing source of sales opportunities.  Referring back to point 4, it is essential that a relationship is built with prospect in order for them to commit to purchase, especially in the case of switchers.  A rolling, manageable amount it recommended.
• Be perceptive and respectful to real sales opportunities and know when to leave some alone.  If your calls are not taken or returned, or you are told there is no real interest, you must respect this.  Maintaining contact with someone who has expressly indicated a lack of interest can soon turn into negative marketing and potentially damage your brand image. It takes very little effort to create bad word-of-mouth.
• Take care when managing the sales team.  Ensure that they don’t end up with the equivalent of a telephone directory of false prospects, which in many cases don’t even constitute as cold leads.  Success for many is around managing a small number of strategic prospects
• If you employ a number of sales people then it might be time to review roles and responsibilities and perhaps to take time out to look at strategy and training needs.  It might be also worthwhile reviewing the type of sales personnel you have.  To date, there have been four generations of sales people from the traveller today’s sales consultant. With the latter being classed as more a sales adviser with more of partnership approach as opposed to that of the former who is, at best, an order taker.

It is therefore possible to summarise that if you are capable of understanding your customers’ needs and you have the ability to meet them and become a trusted adviser, whatever your product or service, you will be on the right tracks to a successful business.

James Pinchbeck  is a Marketing Partner with Streets Chartered Accountants, a top 40UKaccountancy firm.