“Why should customers purchase from you?”

Needless to say, “Sales” is one of the most critical aspects of your business. Organisations which significantly increased their revenues have done so, because they have put resources into their sales process.

20 years ago, the role of a salesperson was very different from today, especially in the industrial B2B sector. With limited competition, market leaders used to milk customers in desperate need of engineered products and services. Salespeople of the top brands used to sit on the bench outside of the customer’s purchasing office, collect their orders and leave. In more remote areas, customers even queued up outside of the manufacturer’s outlet and hoped that there will be enough stock left when their turn came.

Fortunately, the situation has dramatically changed after the entry of Japanese and Chinese firms in the competition. Highly engineered products delivering excellent performance are now much easier to find. However, sales methods have not evolved at the same pace. Today, still too many businesses handle sales just like before: they promote product features and often ignore customers’ needs.

High level Purchasing Managers have academic degrees in their discipline and regularly follow professional trainings to get the maximum value for their employers.

Unfortunately, on the other side of the negotiation table, salespeople are often poorly trained. This leads inevitably to a high turnover in the sales team blamed for the lack of results with no precise information on why there’s limited success. As Ian Altman explains in his excellent book “Same Side Selling”, it is imperative to determine if your solution matches what the customer wants to solve. If it does, price is almost never a problem. He underlines that it is critical for salespeople to understand that the sale isn’t closed when the client signs off the purchase order. In fact, for the purchaser, the finish line is the results. In other words, the seller together with the customer should measure if the service or the product that she delivered actually solved the client’s problem or achieved the customer’s expected outcome. Ian Altman adds that salespeople should ask customers more often the following question: “What can we measure together to make sure we get the right results?”

How do we then organise and train a sales team to become the most effective department in your company delivering consistently better results?

• Set targets with the sales team that are mutually agreed upon

• Ensure frequent dialogue with the salespeople and find out possible issues they face

• Coach the Salespeople to evolve from order-takers to customers’ process partners

• Help to quantify value

• Uncover the needs of the customers

• Coach the sales team on the ground

• Prepare for contract reviews

Get in touch with me if you think you or someone you know need my assistance. I excel in organising businesses with easy to use process tools and I coach sales teams.

I help businesses to achieve results.