Archive for month: September, 2023

Charting your Sales Course for 2025!

By Patrick McClure, Sr. Consultant

It’s common in the fall time to hear company executives complain about the holiday season. I can just hear them now:

“OMG, we only have two weeks in December, and the rest of the month is a waste of time. No one will be at their desks, and we won’t be able to sell anything!”

“Everyone has visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, and all they’re thinking about is what presents to buy for their loved ones. How in the world can we get them to focus on business?”

“I wish Thanksgiving and Christmas never existed! Arggghhhhh!”

Granted, for most companies December is a short month. Except for retailers, December is severely impacted by the holiday season and by vacations. However, December is an ideal time to put the finishing touches on your sales plan for the new year, so take advantage of this month to create a stellar plan for success in the new year.

Creating Your Sales Plan

The first step in creating your sales plan for the new year is to review your performance in the past year. For some tips on how to do this, you can read the 7 Step Sales Diagnosis Plan from our blog. If you’ve completed that review, you’ll have a solid grasp of the following essential elements:

Sales Objectives and your performance results for the last year
Highlights & Lowlights for the year
SWOT Analysis updated
Top 3 Problem areas to Fix
Top 3 Opportunities for Growth

If your review of the last year is complete, you’re already ahead of the game. Now your attention can shift to goals and objectives for the new year, and how to make them a reality. Here’s a recommended process to get this done:

1. Write down your Objectives for the new year.

Casey Stengel said it best when he told his teams:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

Without a defined specific and written objective, you are flying blind. You can’t hit a target if it is not defined, so get your targets written down.

Your key sales objectives will support the overall business plan for the new year, and will define the “big picture” objectives for your team. Some examples might be:

“To grow our market share from 10% to 20%”
“To increase total revenue by 30% by the end of the new year.”
“To launch our new system into the marketplace and to generate $1 MM in revenue”
“To reduce selling expenses by ________________”

2. Strategic Positioning

Given the defined sales objectives for the next year, you will now consider the best positioning your company needs to give yourself the best possibility of success. Think about questions like these:

♦ Identifying where the best market opportunity resides (which of the market segments offer the most potential given your differentiators).
♦ Which sales method to use?
♦ How should your sales organization be structured for maximum effectiveness?
♦ Who are your top competitors and how can they be eclipsed, neutralized or controlled?
♦ Who are the key partners and alliances?

3. Territory/Market Analysis

Given your objectives and your strategic positioning, deepen the analysis to define or refine your intended selling geographies or industries. This analysis would reveal:

♦ Size of territory, Industry specialization, key locations
♦ Installed Base Customers & Location
♦ # of Prospects, their industry, and their location

4. Unique Value Proposition

This will be a quick review for most companies because it will simply validate the selling propositions that have been effectively used in the past year. However, if results from the last year were dismal, now is the time to really re-examine your unique selling propositions. You need to absolutely define with clarity and precision the following:

♦ Features, Benefits, and Value of your products/services.
♦ What exactly is unique about your company and what you deliver to the marketplace?
♦ Why should people do business with you, versus everyone else?
♦ What’s so special about our company?

5. Sales Forecast

This will be a detailed analysis, generally broken into quarters or monthly, of the following:

♦ Total Sales Revenue
♦ Total # of New Accounts
♦ Total Revenue for New Accounts
♦ Revenue for existing accounts
♦ Profitability
♦ Any other targets?

Your CRM system or Sales Forecast system will be loaded on a month-to-month basis with these factors. Depending on your industry, and any seasonality, you can simply target equally month-to-month or vary the targets based upon time of year.

It’s always a good idea to get the salespeople to actively contribute to this forecast, and to make sure they are absolutely in agreement with the targets. They must be committed to achieving these targets and there must be a realistic expectation that the targets can be achieved and exceeded.

6. Detailed Sales Pipeline Analysis

This is the most important element of your Sales Plan for the new year. This is the detail on exactly how you intend to achieve your goals. Take the sales objectives, analyze your pipeline and ratios, and come up with specific sales activities that are needed to accomplish your annual selling goals. These may include (but are not limited to) the following:

♦ What is your Lead Tracking System (Excel, Paper-based, automated SFA?)
♦ Total Named Prospects to Develop
♦ Total # of Opportunities in your Territory
♦ Total # of Qualified Opportunities in your assigned Industry
♦ # of Referrals from Installed Base Customers
♦ # or Leads required to feed the Sales Pipeline
♦ Where are the leads coming from? (Lead Sources report)
♦ Estimated # of Prospecting Phone Calls by rep by month
♦ Estimated # of F2F Calls needed by rep by month
♦ # of Sales Presentations needed by rep and by month

Your pipeline analysis should include Lead Sources. You should know precisely the origination point for every sale you’ve made in the past year. This will be critical information in planning where you would most productively spend your time in the remainder of the year.

When this analysis is complete, you will now know exactly the selling activities that are needed in order to achieve your targets. For instance, if your sales reps typically enjoy a 20 % close ratio for every sales presentation delivered, they will need to deliver 5 presentations to achieve one sale. All the standard selling ratios should be captured in an Excel spreadsheet and handed out to the reps. You will almost always discover that the sales team is NOT doing enough prospecting for new business!

7. Sales Process

This is a fast review of your normal sales process, fine tuning for the coming year. If it was successful in the previous year, don’t change much! If it was NOT successful, you will need to change it! Along the way, you need to identify “Best Practice” sales methodologies and identify weaknesses in the process (where are sales lost?)

In addition, you might want to review your initial business development process, particularly how opportunities are qualified to begin with.

♦ Where are sales being lost? At what point in your sales process do you fail?
♦ What’s the plan to eliminate the losses?
♦ How can the process be made more efficient and effective?

8. Key Success Factors (KSFs)

This is the most important sections of the sales plan for the manager and executive because it lists the top three KSFs that, if achieved, will guarantee achievement of the plan. One of my managers used to refer to these as the “critical few” which makes allowance for the absolute importance of them.

The KSFs are developed after considering all the foregoing sections for the sales plan. Based on an analysis of the preceding sections, ask the following:

♦ What must we do to ensure success?
♦ What does top management need to do to support us?
♦ What does our company need to help us with?

9. Resource Needs

Now that your plan is complete, it’s time to spell out the resources you need to achieve success. This may include people, support, materials, logistics, management, coaching, training and so on. If you are missing a key skill or resource, this is where you would list it.

Since you’ve developed a careful and concise analysis, you will be prepared to review with management and to request critical resources and support from other departments, such as Marketing, Human Resources, IT and Customer Support. Everyone in the company should be “in the loop” with your sales plan and they should fully support it. After all, everyone sells!

10. Sales Operations Assessment

Patrick is offering complimentary 30 minutes over the phone to identify likely root causes of sales productivity issues with at least three actionable ideas. You will discover critical problem areas, recognize underlying causes of these issues, learn at least three new ideas to implement and begin a plan of action. To learn more, email patrick@lighthouseconsulting.com.

Patrick McClure is Sr. Consultant and Practice Head for Sales & Customer Service. Over the past 30 years, Patrick has trained salespeople and managers to drive breakthrough sales results using innovative and practical techniques. He has a knack for reducing the most complex problems to utter simplicity and showing his audience exactly how start winning new clients. During his corporate career, Mr. McClure sold over $250 MM worth of products and services at corporate giants such as IBM, Hitachi Data Systems, EDS and Digital Equipment. He is a black-belt master at selling complex business solutions to C-Level executives, and today he will share his secrets with small companies hoping to crack into the Fortune 1000. As the author of 3 books on selling, Patrick passionately and patiently serves up his wisdom to readers, clients, and audiences. He caters to both small and large firms seeking to close more business. You can contact Patrick at patrickm@lighthouseconsulting.com.

Lighthouse Consulting Partners, LLC

Testing Division provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style & personality assessments for new hires & staff development. LCP can test in 19 different languages, skills testing, domestic and international interpersonal coaching and offer a variety of workshops – team building, interpersonal communication.

Business Consulting for Higher Productivity Division provides stress & time management workshops, sales & customer service training and negotiation skills, leadership training, market research, staff planning, operations, ERP/MRP selection and implementation, refining a remote work force, M&A including due diligence – success planning – value creation and much more.

To order the books, “Cracking the Personality Code”, “Cracking the Business Code” and “Cracking the High-Performance Team Code”, please go to www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

If you would like additional information on this topic or others, please contact Lighthouse Consulting Partners LLC, Santa Monica, CA, (310) 453-6556, ext. 410, pattyc@lighthouseconsulting.com & our website: www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

Using A Customer Service Culture To Drive Profit

By Patty Crabtree

In the ever-evolving business landscape, customer service remains a critical function that has been significantly impacted by the pandemic and the trend of employee turnover.

However, amidst these challenges lies a tremendous opportunity. Businesses can establish a customer service culture that not only sets them apart from competitors but also drives long-term success and profitability. Understanding the customer’s perspective is paramount in creating a customer-centric environment.

Consider this eye-opening statistic from a Harvard Business School study by Reichheld and Schefter: a mere 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to a remarkable profit increase ranging from 25 percent to 95 percent (HBS Working Knowledge, July 10, 2000). This highlights the undeniable impact customer service has on the bottom line.

Bain & Company, a global business consulting leader, reports that repeat customers spend up to 67 percent more with a company during months 31 to 36 than in the initial six months (Bain & Company, customerloyalty.com). It’s evident that taking care of existing customers provides a faster path to cash and fosters increased spending and referrals. As a result, astute business owners prioritize customer retention as a cornerstone of their strategy.

by rekre89

While customer service is often associated with rectifying issues, it is crucial to shift the narrative and view service as an experience that can proactively prevent problems. Too often, businesses design their operations around the expectations of an ideal customer, disregarding the fact that most customers are not perfect.

To truly meet customer needs, organizations must serve customer preferences and anticipate customer requirements in advance. This approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also minimizes costs, reinforcing the brand and creating a lasting positive impression.

In a notable customer service encounter, Jacob, a representative for a finance company, demonstrated a thoughtful focus on customer care. During a conversation with a potential client, Jacob listened attentively as the client shared their struggles and concerns leading to needing a loan as they inquired about their potential interest rate.

Thoughtfully taking the potential client’s anxiety into account, Jacob said, “This is what we are going to find out together.” This simple statement created a partnership between Jacob and the potential client, putting the prospect at ease and energizing the conversation.

By guiding the potential client through the screening questions with understanding and support, Jacob’s approach fostered a sense of trust and ensured the prospect felt heard and valued. Through this empathic approach, Jacob illustrated the transformative power of a customer-centric mindset, highlighting the importance of partnership and understanding in delivering exceptional customer service experiences.

While this story illustrates working with a prospect, the mindset of being in it together with your customers is critical to a successful customer service culture.

At the heart of a successful customer service culture lies the belief that customer support is not limited to a single department but rather filters through every aspect of the organization.

Adopting Home Depot’s adage, “If you’re not supporting the customer or supporting those who do, what is the value of your job anyway?”, is crucial for establishing a customer-centric mindset that resonates throughout the company. When customer service becomes an integral part of operations and every employee embraces it as their responsibility, the organization can achieve remarkable outcomes.

by Tumisu

One company took such an approach. Each department was challenged to define their customer path pointing back to the external client. This initiative aimed to instill the belief that every individual within the organization had customers to support, and that every action taken contributed to serving those external clients.

Not only did this shift in perspective lead to a profound cultural transformation, it also led to increased profitability. Employees realized that their roles extended beyond their specific departments, encompassing support for every customer within the organization, including their fellow co-workers. Silos were eliminated and processes were streamlined, replaced by a unified focus on providing exceptional service to all customers, both internal and external.

By embracing this holistic approach, the organization witnessed remarkable outcomes. Interdepartmental barriers dissolved as employees recognized the interconnectedness of their roles in delivering a seamless customer experience. The heightened sense of unity and shared purpose fostered collaboration, increased efficiency, and amplified customer satisfaction.

This inspiring story exemplifies how adopting a customer-centric mindset breaks down obstacles, promotes collaboration, and creates an organizational culture dedicated to serving all customers. By recognizing the value of every individual’s contribution and nurturing a shared commitment to customer support, companies unlock the full potential of their teams and deliver exceptional experiences to their customers.

by Milada Vigerova

In the pursuit of a customer service culture, it is vital to shift focus from solely nurturing prospects to consistently supporting existing customers. While businesses invest significant time and effort in the sales process, the post-sale phase is equally crucial. Implementing a comprehensive onboarding process allows businesses to not only collect essential contact and billing information but also begin building a deeper knowledge of their customers. Gaining insights into their preferred contact methods, mailing address, and personal interests enables businesses to tailor interactions and deliver personalized experiences.

Another vital aspect of a customer service culture is speed. Customers have increasingly high expectations when it comes to receiving prompt solutions. Surprising studies reveal that even minor delays can significantly impact a business. For instance, 20% of customers are deterred from making a purchase if an organization takes minutes to respond, and an additional 25 percent refrain from buying if it takes hours to receive an answer. Slow service not only frustrates customers but also results in lost sales, diminished loyalty, and reduced recommendations.

Furthermore, customer rage can initiate a harmful cycle of declining revenue, increased customer dissatisfaction, reduced employee morale, and higher job turnover. Although the Great Resignation may be a recent phenomenon, the trend of quiet quitting has long existed. To counteract this trend, organizations must prioritize creating a customer service culture by empowering employees, providing them with the necessary tools, and offering ongoing training to foster authentic engagement.

In conclusion, cultivating a positive customer service culture is pivotal for sustained business success. By prioritizing customer retention, proactively meeting customer needs, and fostering a customer-centric mindset throughout the organization, businesses can differentiate themselves, drive profitability, and achieve lasting success in a highly competitive landscape.

By Gerd Altmann

If you are open to a conversation about how to use a positive customer service culture to drive profit, or how our in-depth work style and personality assessment could help your team, please contact us at 310-453-6556, extension 403 or email us at dana@lighthouseconsulting.com and our website is www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

Patty Crabtree, Chief Executive Officer guides LCS clients seeking to improve culture design, human capital management, and develop or expand effective remote workforce initiatives. To this specialty she brings 25 years of Operations and Finance leadership, excelling in equipping and empowering profit-focused teams.

Lighthouse Consulting Partners, LLC

To order the books, “Cracking the Personality Code”, “Cracking the Business Code” and “Cracking the High-Performance Team Code”, please go to www.lighthouseconsulting.com.

If you would like additional information on this topic or others, please contact Lighthouse Consulting Partners LLC, Santa Monica, CA, (310) 453-6556, ext 410 pattyc@lighthouseconsulting.com & our website: www.lighthouseconsulting.com.