Most of my time in the marketplace is spent with sales teams, not surprising at first glance. However, occasionally the odd farsighted client asks me to work with other departments. Why? Because they’ve recognised that successful companies often achieve significant growth by focusing all employees on sales to one degree or another.
When it comes to sales, let’s get everyone involved.
Surely it’s too important not to.
Many of us have heard the story of the new Managing Director who when addressing the entire work force asked all those who believed they were involved in sales to stay in the room. He then asked all those who thought they weren’t involved with sales to leave the room and wait outside the main reception door in the car park. Once the Company had split themselves into two groups he went out and addressed all those in the car park, the message being one of, “you may well end up here permanently if you don’t change your attitude, understand everyone in this Company has a responsibility to help grow sales.”
No doubt the message was remembered for many years to come.
Only the other day I found myself repeating a story told to me when I was relatively naive to the challenges of running a business. My then Commercial Director was telling me that the two most difficult jobs to recruit for were filing clerks and Receptionists. When I asked why, he explained that both jobs required a person that was diligent, reasonably intelligent and in the case of the receptionist friendly and helpful. I didn’t think these skills were in short supply, but he then pointed out that neither position paid particularly well and both jobs were potentially very, very boring. I mention this because sometimes in the rush to get “bums” on seats we forget that the person we’ve hired is the first person who an existing or prospective customer will speak to.
Worrying thought isn’t it.
Obviously it’s easy for us to decide that admin, operations, technical etc, should have a sales focus, but perhaps not so easy to achieve. Perhaps the starting point is better communication, let’s ensure the message is clear and unequivocal, customers matter, we all need to play our part. In the fight to win new customers, the first battle surely has to be to make sure we look after our existing customers. Satisfied customers probably tell no one, ecstatic customers may tell a few others, unhappy customers invariably tell loads. If we allow the team to neglect customers we are making it so much harder for ourselves. No repeat business and no referrals.
Ultimately we may have no customers at all.
So if looking after existing customers is the fundamental starting point, almost certainly the second area to address is finding new opportunities. It shouldn’t be that difficult to encourage, maybe even incentivise, everyone to look for new business. Rewards based on a successful sale can’t and shouldn’t be massive, equally it would be unfair not to recognise and reward those that make the effort.
If you look after your people then they’ll be more likely to look after you.
Personally I’m a big fan of where possible and practical in making things fun. It may take a little bit of our time to design and organise a “sales for non-salespeople” competition or league table, but it’s often a superbly effective strategy. Simply offering someone a few pounds in vouchers is unlikely to catch everyone’s imagination, however a “points make prizes” sales leads competition, with opportunities to double or treble points earned for particular types of sales often grab the attention of more of the team.
Of course at this stage I’d probably not be doing anyone any favours if I didn’t remind everyone that we’re unlikely to change attitudes over night. “You can’t make a three minute egg in two minutes,” as a good friend of mine said to me recently. Getting the entire team to constantly think about both the existing customer’s welfare and secondly helping to search for new business opportunities is unlikely to happen straight away.
That shouldn’t stop us from embarking on the plan and indeed persisting when progress seems a little slow. If it was easy we’d have already done it and so would all of our competitors. Having a good idea is only part of the process, acting on the idea is obviously key, likewise is adopting some tenacity when others don’t pick up the batten as quickly and consistently as we desire. When I say tenacity I’m referring to the probable need to revisit the project several times before we start making the sort of inroads we require.
Let's review...
Now to quickly review where we’re at with the sales for non-sales people plan so far.
The entire Company has been reminded or trained to really look after existing customers, in addition everyone has been incentivised to look for new sales.
Lastly we’re prepared to invest some time and resource to ensure that everyone does what’s being asked of them.
Shouldn’t we simultaneously be trying to break down the barriers between different divisions, shouldn’t we be trying to truly build a team and not a group of individuals that are all fighting their own corner and pursuing their own agendas?
Building real team spirit might be quite a task but it certainly isn’t impossible.
If we are aware of the challenge from the outset then maybe we can put a number of things into practice to make sure it happens.
If everyone understands the vision, if everyone shares in the success then surely that success is about as close to guaranteed as you can get. Getting both colleagues and peers on the same side as yourself goes beyond being a challenge, it’s most certainly an opportunity to take the entire Company to the next level.
Sales should never be a dirty word, rather we should all perhaps realise that without sales a Company has little or no future. And to that end if sales are a Companies future then we can and should all play some part in making sure sales go from strength to strength.
As we said at the beginning it’s too important not too, isn’t it?
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