How to Build an Effective Sales Strategy E-Book

David Bailey

• Herausgeber: novum pro Verlag
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 156

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

Imprint

All rights of distribution, also through movies, radio and television, photomechanical reproduction, sound carrier, electronic medium and reprinting in excerpts are reserved.

© 2023 novum publishing

ISBN print edition: 978-3-99131-184-3

ISBN e-book: 978-3-99131-185-0

Editor: Hugo Chandler, BA

Cover image: Nerthuz | Dreamstime.com

Cover design, layout & typesetting: novum publishing

Images: David Bailey

www.novum-publishing.co.uk

If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going … Any Bus Will Get You There!

How to Build anEffective Sales Strategy

A common sense approach to building an effective sales strategy – but the thing about common sense is … that it’s not all that common!

By David Bailey

Former BBC Dragon’s Den entrepreneur and Chairman of Mercuri International UK Ltd and Global Franchise Director for MI Group

Foreword: 10 Business Facts of Life

1. The main aim of most businesses is usually to make a net profit; which considers all aspects of the business and ends up with a figure indicating the financial stability and reliability of the company. Any single year can be an anomaly, so it is best to take a view over a period of three to five previous years’ trading.

2. Despite what accountants will tell you, profit is a simple calculation! A good accountant can make your business figures look like anything you want them to be, but in real terms the following calculation is the most complex you will ever need:

Figure 1. Revenue is sometimes referred to as ‘income’, but the formula is WHAT COMES IN minus WHAT GOES OUT

3. Having now established and clarified the complexities of accounting, it can be the starting point for a company strategy to be constructed upon.

MAXIMISE REVENUEwhilst keepingCOSTSto a minimum. Costs should only be reduced if that cost is impairing your ability or does not contribute towards generating and maintaining revenue. It is advisable not to cut costs if that element of the business is a contributor to the revenue.

4. Revenue can only come from a combination of four directions:

Figure 2.

5. Therefore, there are only FOUR things a business owner needs to do to have a successful business:

Find good customersDevelop them and keep themFind good employeesDevelop them and keep them

6. Some of the biggest fixed costs in a business are the people who you employ, so they, and their departments, really need to be contributing efficiently and effectively towards the previous four things. If you have people employed that do not contribute towards these factors, you must deal with them as soon as possible.

7. Business owners should think carefully about increasing fixed costs, especially during rapid expansion strategies as this can often be a real company breaker and seriously impact upon cash flow. It is better to focus investment on generating business and then look for suitable premises rather than invest in fantastic premises then look for suitable business to pay for this!

8. Most businesses fail to succeed because of their inability to constantly assess the state of their business input base and make the necessary adjustments ahead of the game.

9. Most businesses spend most of their time looking at their results. Whilst this is an important facet of forward planning, there is absolutely nothing you can do about a result because it is HISTORY, and no one has ever been able to change history! Focussing on results only is like driving a car looking through the rear-view mirror. You will crash into something quite quickly.

10. The more important aspect of historic results is the understanding of HOW that result was produced as this will lead to a clearer picture of what needs to be done (differently) to achieve a new or better result in the future.

As we journey through this book, we will never lose focus on the above facts and will endeavour to dig deep into our resources to leverage the best and most effective and efficient ways to grow and sustain your business. We accept that it may involve some difficult decisions for you and require some effort to get that position, but these principles should be the drivers behind all your decisions.

You will find it useful at every bus stop in this book, to go back to this page and read the 10 business facts of life again. It will put the chapter that you are reading back into context for you.

There are points for you to personally reflect on each chapter in the book and these are signalled by:

You will also notice a blank page after each bus stop so please take the opportunity to write down all the issues identified in the chapter in relation to your own company.

In this way you will not only read the ‘how to do’ but you will begin to build the ‘what to do’.

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 youcouldsee 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 itcouldbe 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

To put this first stage of thinking into perspective and emphasise itsvital importance, we would like to refer to military thinking as the basis for an explanation. In military missions it is most definitely ‘a matter of life or death’ and any SAS soldier will tell you (if you can find one) that the objective of most missions is to get in, do the job and get out, preferably undetected, and if at all, avoid conflict or engagement with the enemy.

If engagement is unavoidable, they have prepared and planned for it and everyone in the team has a job to do and knows exactly how to do it. That is their best chance of survival … if it is a matter of life or death.

In simple terms a ‘life or death’ military mission has a clearly defined objective and a series of forward and retreat objectives pre-planned before starting. The process begins with the final objective and is then planned … BACKWARDS … from that objective.

Let me illustrate using a fictitious scenario. Let us assume we have hostages held in an enemy camp on the other side of a ravine of several miles width. The terrain is inhospitable and defined as impassable by humans. The mentality of the military thought process is different to the norm in business.

To the military, ‘impassable’ means that nobody has ever done it before … yet.

In other words, anything is possible, it is just a matter of working out how to do it. They are so focussed on IT IS POSSIBLE, that their creative and logistical resources begin to search for ways to do it. There is a big difference in mentality between those who say, ‘It can’t be done’ to those who say, ‘It can be done, but we just don’t know how to … at present’.

In military thinking, nothing is ruled out until a way is found however long it takes, day and night. At which point, having decided the best solution, they will reconstruct the terrain and buildings as accurately as possible and train endlessly to conquer all they have to offer. In summary, they are highly trained, organised, and prepared, knowing the activities that they each need to perform, before they set off … including their rescue mission, exit strategies and contingency plans in the event of something not going to plan. Military missions do not set out with a view, ‘Let’s get cracking and see how we do!’

Let us just be clear here by what we mean as the final objective. It is NOT to ‘rescue the hostages.’

The final objective of the mission is ‘to return safely to base with all the hostages and all troops within four days’. The two statements are vastly different. Rescuing the hostages happens somewhere in the middle!

Let us go into a little more detail. For example, if they have worked out that it will be an eight-man mission over four days, that means that they must achieve their rescue and exit plan by the end of day two to get out and back to safety, otherwise they will fail in their overall mission. Food and equipment are prepared for a four-day mission and each stage of the journey has a time-line associated with it, planned backwards from the objective. They always know where they need to be at any one time and whether they are on course to succeed. In this way, if they encounter problems in the early stages, they can adjust activities, by safely aborting the mission, if necessary, without loss of life. If they encounter problems in the latter stages, they can execute contingencies to get back on plan.

In conclusion if you know where you are going and have set interim targets backwards from those objectives, you will always know your exact position and chances of success. Furthermore, if you are behind or ahead of schedule you can modify your activity accordingly, while you still have time and are still alive to do it!

In marine or aviation navigation these interim targets are called ‘waypoints’ and form the basis of creating any navigational route. This book will examine the building of an effective sales strategy as a navigational process with clearly defined waypoints.

The following illustrates a simplified basis of the military thinking behind the hostage rescue scenario:

Illustration

DAY 4

08.50 Hrs Arrive back at base

07.15 Hrs Pick up by helicopter

07.00 Hrs Main group and hostages arrive at pick up point

06.00 Hrs advance party at rendezvous checking situation

05.00 Hrs leave camp 4 heading for pick up point

04.30 Hrs discard and destroy all unnecessary equipment and food

DAY 3

16.00 Hrs set up camp 4, two miles from pick up point (review plan)

15.00 Hrs leave camp 3 for a 20-mile trek to spot near pick up point (review hourly)

11.00 Hrs Set up camp 3 on safe side of ravine (review plan)

05.00 Hrs Enter ravine with hostages (review position hourly)

DAY 2

24.00 Hrs Set up camp 2 on enemy side of ravine for early crossing (review plan)

23.01 Hrs Destroy local footbridge over river

23.00 Hrs Cross local footbridge and make way to camp 2 position (review plan)

22.00 Hrs extract hostages from held position and make way to footbridge

21.58 Hrs create diversion and confusion that cannot be pinpointed

21.45 Hrs diversion team in place

21.45 Hrs extraction team in place

09.00 Hrs – 20.30 hrs Lie low until darkness. 1 mile from objective (review plan)