How to Manage Your Sales Effectively in 2009!

2009 is undoubtedly going to be one of the hardest years for many businesses. But with a lull in sales, take the time to ensure your company and your employees are working efficiently and to maximum capability.

Workflow at its simplest is the movement of documents and/or tasks through a work process. More specifically, workflow is the operational aspect of: how tasks are structured, who performs them, what their relative order is, how information flows to support the tasks and how tasks are being tracked.

Making Workflow a success for you...

For successful workflow management to be carried out, you must first understand the underlying processes that make up workflow.

Best Practice Management - Measure and improve your business processes

Sales Team Management - Manage your sales team for profit and success

Automated Documentation - Reduce administrative time and errors through automation

Each component plays a vital part in the smooth running of your business and the efficiency of your staff. When you have every aspect of your business processes up to scratch and working in harmony together, you can expect your customer service to be unbeatable, your profits increase and your customers happy!

Workflow is an integral part of making your business more efficient. There are automated systems available to you on the market which will have tools designed to assist you with the successful management of your sales. Automation technologies are some of the most important timesaving strategies for both your salespeople and managers, they promote a best practice approach outlining a precise definition of what ought to be done, how, when and by whom.

With the help of a software solution to provide the best workflow for your business, you can't fail to see your profits rise and your business become more efficient. So what now?

Research! The internet will help you find a software solution perfect for you and your business and some companies off free demonstrations of how their product will fit your business. Take advantage of these free web demos and you can see for yourself the benefits Workflow will bring to your company.

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By Virginia Hull

Virginia Hull is an employee of Sawfish software and specialises in Workflow solutions.

Writing A Winning Business Plan

First - stop thinking like a business owner. I know, you might think this is odd. However, the reason most business owners don't write a business plan is because they are too close to their challenges and can't decide what they need to do. Stepping out of character will help you see the big picture and the little details so you can focus on what to do.

Since this was written during championship football season, I want you to assume the role of a winning college or professional sports coach. It doesn't matter if you are a woman or a man for this job. The goal will be the same. You will want to prepare your team to win the championship game by as many points as possible. If you have trouble with football, pick any team sport and the concept will work. The idea is to get into the character of a winning coach to help you create a plan.

Think like 60 Minutes is all You Have

A football game is divided up like a business year. There are four quarters and two minute warnings you must plan for. You will need plays and actions for kicking things off, receiving special team opportunities and think offense and defense to win.

Understand You and Your Opponent

Winning coaches invest time to research opponents and you need to determine both your strengths and weaknesses. If you don't take time for this, you will get clobbered by the other teams. Use this research and analysis to formulate your complete game strategies and special plays.

Plan For Special Plays

Every team will need specials plays to kick off, receive, punt, and defend the red zone and two minute warning. These are special opportunities you have in the year from new equipment, vendor specials, trade shows or open houses you can plan for.

The Offensive Game Plays

You will need a list of offensive running and passing plays to execute during the game. These are easy to think about and you must plan for them.

• Action plans to start a new business relationship and move forward.
• Actions to build a stronger customer base.
• Actions to generate referrals for new clients from existing ones.
• Open house and networking actions you will execute for new business.

The Defensive Plays

You will need a list of defensive plays that protect your accounts and seize opportunities. These could include a blitz or a pass rush that capitalizes on an opportunity.

• Action plans that develop satisfied clients and builds strong relationships.
• Surveys that will help determine if you have new opportunities or lost business.
• Monitor and track competitive actions that may impact your current business.
• If you can, have contingency plans for injuries, bad calls and penalties in the game.

I hope you see the advantage of planning from a different perspective to make your sales plan fun and much easier to write. Your business plan doesn't have to be 20 pages long. You need a single sheet that covers the actions you will take to win the game in your business. When you finish writing your business plan, it should be on a 12 month calendar with goals and objectives for each quarter.

A complete game plan makes it easier to adjust actions during the game and in your case, the business year so you can motivate your team throughout the year. If you need help with your plan, I suggest you take time to watch a championship game. Think of it as research. You will be done with your sales plan sooner than you think and it will be fun.

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By Steve Martinez

3 Tips to Help You Sell Your Fashion Company

And you thought the decision to open a business was difficult?
While many believe that selling a company is an even more difficult decision, it doesn't have to be. In fact, it can be a very rewarding one that creates great value or opportunity for a fashion business owner.
1. START PLANNING BEFORE YOU OPEN FOR BUSINESS
Know this: the fashion M&A industry is very robust one today. Apparel and accessory companies of all shapes and sizes, and all across the globe are looking to buy, sell, or merge with other fashion or related businesses.
For this reason, a smart business owner should enter into its market prepared for the possibility of acquiring another company or building a brand that can then be sold.
Failing to plan an exit strategy is a common one. After all, how many people go into business planning to get out of one? (In truth, there are people who build businesses with that exact plan in mind -- create value and sell at a large profit).
Similar to buying a stock, it pays to have an idea as to when you will sell, or how you move towards building a brand that is at least "sale-able" so that you have options available to you as you build your business.
2. CONSULT AN EXPERT ...IN YOUR NICHE!
Selling a restaurant is a different animal than selling a fashion company. As you research options for selling or merging your company, look for experts who have experience in your particular field.
Their understanding of the current industry outlook and how to facilitate valuing your business (and building value) can have a substantial effect on the final deal value. Moreover, a fashion M&A advisor's contact base with fashion companies, bankers and investors interested in the fashion and accessory niche, and other industry professionals can be a great asset that non-specialized M&A companies cannot offer.
"This is a highly active period for fashion M&A, with many businesses looking for strategic partners and others seeking acquisitions at rational prices," notes Jack Hendler, President of Net Worth Solutions, Inc, a New York-based M&A advisory services firm. "There is a great deal of potential in the current market, but companies need all the information they can gather to make insightful decisions that will enhance their long-term profitability."
3. TIMING IS EVERYTHING, SO BE PREPARED
An ancient proverb says, "All roads lead to Rome," meaning all paths or activities lead to the center of things. If you plan ahead from the start, the decision to sell your company will be easier because the process will not be foreign to you. This hold especially true if you are entering into a business with partners, an even more when those partners are close friends or family.
While it's impossible to define a perfect time to sell your fashion business -- since it does depend on economic and personal factor -- knowing your options and having an understanding of what drives the fashion M&A market, will reduce surprises, simplify the process of finding a target, and creating overall great value.

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By Matt Kaden
Matt Kaden is an Associate Director for Net Worth Solutions, Inc (NeWS), a specialized M&A advisory and investment banking firm focusing on retail mergers and acquisitions, including apparel, accessory, consumer products and fashion M&A. For more information and a list of past clients visit http://www.NetWorthSolutionsInc.com

Sales Performance Improvement

Each year companies need to improve their performance in sales not only because of cost pressures but more importantly because they will lose between 5-20% of their customer base each year. This means that in 3 years they will be less than half the size they are now if they do nothing else!
Due largely to companies going into receivership, mergers and takeovers or exit, it is nonetheless a critical factor in the success or otherwise of any business. Just to stand still every company needs to find more business from existing customers as well as finding new ones. The need to improve sales performance is self evident.
Under these circumstances most business owners exhort their sales staff to work harder as if somehow doing more of the same thing will result in better figures when doing more of the same thing brings in more of the same results. It is important to recognise the need to work smarter and not necessarily harder.
So how can we bring about these "smarter" results?
There are a number of areas that can be considered in improving sales performance, not all of them may apply to your situation.
Focus Are your sales staff focusing on the right customers with the right products? Do they assess customers and prospects potential? Or do they just rely on what they did in the past?
Motivation.
It is important that they understand their role in the business. Often this is not the case. If in doubt ask them! The vision you have for the company should be shared by everyone to promote involvement and motivation.
Objectives
Their objectives should be aligned with that vision. It is surprising how many companies do not do this. For instance, there was one case where a company needed growth but the sales team were targeted with maintaining existing customer business.
Cross-Sell and Up-sell
Every opportunity should be taken to cross-sell and up-sell. Cross-selling (other products) and up-selling (superior product, higher grade service) increase the take from the customer for little or no increase in costs of selling to that customer.
Skills
Ensure the sales force is trained in the latest sales techniques because you can be sure the buyer is trained in how to combat them! Training, development and reinforcement of the skills they learn as well as feedback on their performance is vital to ensure that you are getting the best out of the work force
Prospecting
Does the sales team spend time on prospecting? This is the feedstock of your sales pipeline. If they do not, you are running on empty. Do they know which markets to tackle, where and what type of customer the company needs.
Needs and Offer
Do your sales team identify you customers' needs or do they just sell the features of the product or service? Do they consider the whole of your offer or just the products and services? In many cases customers are persuaded not just by the product but by other items such as delivery, terms and conditions or just want to deal with you!
There are of course many other areas to be discussed in an article such as this but simply asking yourself and your team the questions posed above will put you and your business on the road to Sales Performance Improvement.

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By Bob Francis

Bob Francis is an experienced business consultant spending most of his time helping clients with sales and marketing issues. His expertise lies primarily in strategy, sales and marketing and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He is an expert at sales performance measurement and improvement.

Sales Force Management - How to Hire and Employ Talented Sales Professionals

Hiring Sales Professionals: Don't Trust Your Gut
Anyone who has managed salespeople has made hiring mistakes. At one time or another, all of us have found ourselves unable to resist hiring a candidate who seemed to be a sales superstar, even though our intuition made us uneasy or something in their story just didn't jibe with reality. In an increasingly competitive world, success will depend on getting the right people on the sales team and making sure they are doing jobs that best use their innate talents.
Get The Right People On The Team
According to the International Personnel Management Association, typical hiring methods are ineffective. If you simply pointed, blindfolded, to one among a group of candidates and hired that person, your hiring method would depend entirely on chance. If your hiring process includes a typical employment interview, your odds of improving over chance increase about 1%.
If your hiring process includes a standard personality test, you will improve your odds over chance by another 1%. If, along with the interview and personality test, you require a candidate to have relevant job experience your chances of a good hire increase to 5%. If you include a scoreable interview in your hiring process your odds of a good hire increase to about 7%.
If your company is among a growing number of firms that include validated and objectively administered selection tests in the hiring process, you can increase your chances of a good hire by up to 25%. An improvement of 25% may not impress you, but the math shows that this is an improvement of 257% over even the best interview processes that lack selection tests!
So, exactly how would a validated and objectively administered selection test help you avoid making hiring mistakes? These tests reveal not only aptitude for performance, but also a candidate's willingness to perform the duties of the particular sales position. The tests answer the questions: Can the candidate do the job, and is the candidate likely to do the job?
Allocating Sales Talent: Don't Send Ducks to Eagles School!
Assuming you've hired a salesperson based on the results of a validated selection test, it is now imperative to place the new employee in the right position on the team.
I once heard someone admonish sales managers: "Don't send your ducks to eagle school!" It just won't work. Unlike eagles, which are skilled predators hard-wired with a hunter's instinct, ducks are friendly creatures. You send the ducks out hunting, they find a rabbit and they make friends with it! You then yell to the ducks, "No, no, reread page twenty-one of your hunting manual!"
The same thing happens when you send the wrong salespeople on a hunting expedition for new prospects. They make friends with potential customers, buy them lunch, treat them to sporting events, and shower them with expensive gifts, all in the hope of winning business through friendship. But the new business seldom materializes. In frustration, you yell, "No, no, bring in the orders, close the prospects, close the prospects!"
Nearly 2500 years ago in his essay on The Art Of War, Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military thinker admonished, "Do not demand accomplishment of those who have no talent." He continued, "Do not charge people to do what they cannot do. Select them and give them responsibilities commensurate with their abilities." This wisdom has been largely lost on leaders who manage sales organizations.
Talent can't be trained. You either can or cannot sing like an American Idol. In the world of selling, the characteristics of great strategic account managers - by definition - limit their success as business development sales professionals. Likewise, great business development salespeople rarely have what it takes to become great strategic account managers. Both require different skills and different talents! Yet somehow sales leaders believe that talent in one area naturally translates into an ability to perform equally well in other areas.
Coaching Talent
Although you've done your best to select the right talent, and to make sure she has the right position on the team, how do you retain her and develop her innate abilities? First, you continually review your employee's assessment test to remain knowledgeable about her natural abilities and willingness to perform certain job functions. Second - and this is a key to successful talent management- you resist the temptation to place her in a job for which her talent and interests are not aligned.
When it comes to utilizing sales talent, perhaps the biggest error most sales leaders make is promoting great salespeople to the role of sales manager. Most often, when a great salesperson is promoted to sales manager, four things happen:

1) the company loses a great salesperson;

2) the company gets a mediocre - or worse - sales manager

3) customers suffer in the transition;

4) failure prompts the great salesperson to flee to another company.
We believe that much of the money spent by business on sales training is spent educating people in roles they should not occupy. At some point companies will demand a better system for selecting salespeople and sales management candidates with the talent and the will to perform up to management's expectations. For many companies this, and not simply more sales skills training, may become their single most important investment to improve market share and profitability. Using statistically validated assessment tests in the hiring process, placing salespeople only in jobs for which their talents and interests are aligned and developing career paths that allow employees to expand their natural talents is a win-win for the employees and the company.

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By Steve Chriest
Steve Chriest is a sought-after sales consultant, author and speaker. He is a founding partner of Selling Up, a San Francisco-based sales development consulting firm. Selling Up can be found on the Web at http://www.selling-up.com Steve can be reached by email at schriest@selling-up.com

Ten Key Factors That Maximize Sales

Sales representatives are successful today because they gain the majority of their targeted customers business. They manage the relationship and continuously build relationship equity. That doesn't mean they operate with the old lone wolf mentality doing everything under the sun for the customer. They are successful because they take full advantage of all the resources their company has to offer. Transactions and promos flow through a managed relationship. They also dedicate a specific amount of their time to new account development and penetration of those accounts with high potential rather than over providing service functions to existing accounts. Ten Key identifying factors that will help maximize sales success include;
1. Not being afraid to prospect for new accounts and new business. Have enough confidence to view rejection as simply a step closer to success.
2. Understanding the value of planning and actually documenting the key actions necessary to meet specific objectives at specific accounts.
3. Become professional with your planned presentations whether it is to an individual buyer or a group of customer decision makers. Perfect your 25 word elevator speech that clearly outlines your value proposition. Get it down pat for those opportunistic moments that may occur.
4. Goals are a matter of course and they include more than just revenue and margin growth. Milestones are established for target accounts to highlight progress toward their major goals.
5. No one likes record keeping and paperwork but the really successful sales professional understands the necessity and the value received in return for being methodical with their record keeping.
6. Time management should be forever on your mind and you need to continuously practice efficient time control.
7. You've got to be Hunnnnggggrrrry! Hungry for knowledge to improve your skills and demonstrate enough curiosity that you don't wait for company sponsored seminars for education and training. Read, listen to tapes and finance your own self improvement in addition to company programs.
8. Don't chase orders, chase customers. Be willing to lose an order but fight aggressively to never lose a customer unless you need to prune your territory garden due to unacceptable profitability.
9. Your objective on every sales call is to identify the customer's real needs, not to just take an order. Take pride in being a solution provider and demand creator instead of a demand fulfiller.
10. Understand that often a key to your success lies in your ability to educate the customer. This may range in the form of business acumen to helping the customer understand real value. Become an expert at demonstrating the difference between price and cost.
The formula for success is simple:
FIND THE CUSTOMER PAIN -------TAKE THE PAIN AWAY SET YOUR PRICE
Customers will pay plenty, if you can reduce their "PAIN" Find out what the customer's problems are and where they are in pain. Look at it from their point of view, not yours.
Customers no longer spout off about quality products and reliable deliveries. That's a given. Although all customers are trained to say "Your Price is to High", if you find the pain, price is not an issue. Remember the emerging role of the sales professional today is not to increase sales. Let me repeat that--- your role today is not to increase sales. Your role as a sales professional today is to systematically and consistently increase the number of customers who choose you to be their #1 supplier........
It's not about Features and Benefits
Today it's not about the features and benefits of your product. It's about value and how your customers are going to make a profit. You no longer just sell yourself and everything falls into place. Today, relationships are still very important but they are the ante to play. Customers are smarter and more educated. You must bring every resource your company has into play and leverage those resources to create competitive advantage. Learn to really listen to your customers. Let them talk and when there seems to be a pause in the conversation resist the temptation to start talking again. Chances are good that the customer has more to say. The quieter you are the more they will tell you. Listen long enough with a few strategically placed questions and the customer might just tell you exactly how to gain his business. (And it won't just be about price)
http://www.ceostrategist.com - Sign up to receive "The Howl" a free monthly newsletter that addresses real world industry issues. - Straight talk about today's issues. Rick Johnson, expert speaker, wholesale distribution's "Leadership Strategist", founder of CEO Strategist, LLC a firm that helps clients create and maintain competitive advantage. Need a speaker for your next event, E-mail rick@ceostrategist.com
Don't forget to check out the Lead Wolf Series that can help you put more profit into your business.

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By Rick Johnson

Effective Sales Force Training - Adding Know-What to Their Know-How

Selling is a skill, one that is crucial to the success of almost any business organization. That's why companies spend large sums of money, and a lot of employee time, exposing their sales staff to the wisdom and insights of professional sales trainers. These companies know that they are making an investment, that they are building the skills and techniques their sales forces need to identify and qualify prospects, to turn prospects into customers, and to turn new customers into loyal, repeat customers.

All this training is about "how" -- how to talk to prospects, how to listen for customer needs, how to present benefits. And there are some excellent consultants out there who really do help sales representatives to master all these "hows" for a greater impact on sales revenues.

But "how" is only part of the sales interaction. The "how" must be wrapped around the "what" -- the hard data about the products and services being sold. That's just as important to the sale, but too many companies don't provide the quality training needed to get a good return on their product knowledge investment.

If you look at several companies who have hired professional training consultants to build sales skills, you'll probably find that only a fraction of those companies outsource training development on product knowledge. And they achieve significantly poorer results through this neglect.

Why do they develop the product knowledge components in-house? Because they have staff "experts" on the products, the clinicians or engineers or programmers or other specialists who actually developed the product or service. They tap these experts to share their knowledge sometime during the training session.

Often, that's a mistake. Just look at your own experience . . .

Did you ever have a brilliant math teacher who did very little to help you understand mathematics? Or a language teacher who spoke fluently, but didn't produce students who could speak the language? Have you ever met a doctor, an engineer, a programmer, or, for that matter, an insurance agent who knew what he or she was talking about, but couldn't get it across to you?

These experts are on staff because of what they know and what they can do. When they were hired, no one thought about whether or not they could really be effective at teaching non-experts, working in the very different context of sales. Their idea of what information is important, and what is not, is valid in the laboratory or the design center, but it is often wildly inaccurate when applied to a sales call.

In short, they are experts in the product, but you need experts in communicating about the product.

If you want your salespeople to boost revenues and beat the competition, invest in professional talent on both the "know-how" and the "know-what" sides of the equation. That doesn't mean that you have to completely outsource your product knowledge training.

It does mean you have to recognize the importance of high-quality training about the product, and get the help you need, whether that's instructional design, content development, or training delivery.

After all, your competition is also paying professional sales trainers to take care of the "how". Your sales representatives are probably learning the same skills that are taught to your competitors.

The sales force that effectively shares the "what" with prospects is the one that will pull in new customers.

Over the past couple of decades, Best Training Practices owner Will Kenny has played a key role in enhancing product launch and sales training results for companies in a wide range of industries. He is highly effective at bridging the mindsets of the product/service developers and the marketing/sales staff. We focus on teaching sales reps the "what" they need to share with their prospects -- including what to leave out of the conversation -- working with other sales training professionals who develop the "how", the skills and techniques of the effective salesperson. Best Training Practices can be found at http://www.besttrainingpractices.com/, offering free articles and The Training Tipsheet, our free biweekly e-zine.
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By Will Kenny

Managing Customer Expectations

As Sales Professionals, it is our responsibility to manage our Customers expectations. This is really the foundation of all sales success. Do you sell your product/service, or do you oversell your product/service? The image our clients have of our product/service is largely determined by the picture we paint. That image can be derived from collateral, your web presence and the information/expectation you have set with your client through your sales conversations.
Where have you put the bar? Is it realistic? Is it attainable? Your client/customer will find out soon enough. You might as well set a real expectation as opposed to one that you and your company can never reach. This will only result in negative results all the way around.
How to arrive at proper expectations
What is the right expectation? You can only determine this from a complete and thorough knowledge of your product/service and how it fits the needs of your customer. Make sure that you are only selling what you can efficiently and cost effectively deliver. This can only be accomplished by conducting a thorough sales interview. Your ability to translate your products benefits into problem solving solutions for your customers is the vital skill that will propel you to sales success.
Don't oversell! If you need to exaggerate your products/services benefits to make the sale, it will not be worth it in the long run. By closing this over promised sale, you will begin a domino effect series of problems that will haunt you for weeks or months to come. Sometimes, the sale we work hardest to get (the one we make the most concessions on) will be the one that messes with us for a long time. It is not worth it! Know where to set your expectations and how to effectively communicate those to your client.
How do deliver the expectation
If you do an excellent job of setting the expectation, your customer will love you! You will give them EXACTLY what you told them you would give them. What a concept! Maybe, just maybe if you acted as a professional, you will find ways to deliver more than expected. This is what will give you the advantage. This is what will set you apart from all of the competitors your customer is looking at or has ever had.
I'm not advocating over under-promising. Don't minimize the benefits of your product/service just to shine after the sale. That is not what I am saying. If you truly believe in your product and have done an excellent job crafting a solution to your clients problems with your product, then the result of your efforts will be a well received solution.
Creating value while under delivering
Always sell value. This cannot be understated. You are selling your product for a reason. Value should be foremost in your discussions with prospective clients/customers.
Conclusions
This is how you deliver and manage the expectation. It is up to you. You create in your clients mind the picture of what they will expect. Paint a picture that is accurate and achievable. Don't over sell. Always under promise and over deliver. Manage the expectations of your clients/customers and your Sales career will be less stressful and more profitable.
http://www.Salesmotivation.net was launched to fill the need for no cost, quality training and motivational material for Sales Professionals of all levels. Our goal is to train you, equip you, challenge and motivate you.
I have been a top producing Sales Professional for over 17 years. I have sold for large corporations and small start up companies. I believe that Sales is one of the most challenging yet rewarding fields an individual can choose. You have the ability to create your own destiny and determine your level of success. I take my profession very seriously, but have a great deal of fun achieving my goals. My wish is for you to do the same.
We are always hear to help and I am available to speak at Sales meetings and conferences. No cheesy pictures, no pumped up resumes. My presentations are packed with tons of humor and mountains of information and practical tools your sales staff can use right away. Please email me at gary@salesmotivation.net for more information.

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By Gary Jones